


Sentinel

by DaemonMeg



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Character, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Not Canon Compliant, Polyamorous Character, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:26:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5940367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaemonMeg/pseuds/DaemonMeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>****NOTE: Author on hiatus after having a baby!!*****</p>
<p>Maedb Cousland is the Hero of Fereldan, killer of the Archedemon, and Commander of the Grey. When the end of the Blight isn't the reprieve they had all hoped for, she discovers a new threat from the deep. Maedb scrambles to save Ferelden, a land already broken by civil war and an enemy invasion. Nathaniel Howe returned from the Free Marches with one thing on his mind. Vengeance. But when he meets his father's killer, Nathaniel sees a new purpose lies ahead for him. Can these two move past their grievances and work together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The characters and universe are properties of Bioware. The short passages at the beginning of each chapter are taken directly from the Dragon Age universe.
> 
> This is a canon-divergent telling of the Awakening DLC. When I played Awakening, there were many ways in which I wanted my Wardens to act as Commander of the Grey when they moved to Amaranthine, so this is that story. [Here is a link](http://snkrfnd.tumblr.com/post/90718918225/maedb-cousland-warrior-champion-specsword) to my character description of Maedb.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathaniel Howe returns to Vigil's Keep with tragic results.

 

 

> _The Knotwood Hills have claimed untold lives over the years. Rumor has it that a section of the Deep Roads runs under the hills, and that the structure of these old tunnels is starting to deteriorate. Few men are brave enough, or foolish enough, to investigate the truth._

  
Nathaniel crouched behind one of the craggy boulders that littered the landscape of the surrounding hills and watched as yet another scouting party canvassed the area. He ground his teeth in anger to see Orlesians on Ferelden soil and thought of how his uncle Byron was probably rolling in his grave to see the filthy imperialists patrolling his family’s ancestral lands. The scouts rounded a knot of twisted roots and fallen trees from an outcropping to the north and he held his breath. When their screams rang out across the foothills, he finally smiled. This morning Nathaniel had discovered a newly formed sinkhole on the trade road that ran to the northwest. He’d done his best to disguise it under a mat of woven vines covered with dirt and leaf litter. It seemed the disguise had worked.

It took him two more days to reach the outlying pastures surrounding Vigil’s Keep. He had to keep to fencerows the whole time, ducking into the nearby brush at the merest sight of a toiling farmer. There were fewer workers in the fields than he remembered; especially now considering it was shearing time for the flocks.

Arriving within sight of the curtain wall around dusk, he focused his attention eastward, making note of the sentries and how often they made their rounds. It had been eight years since he’d had a glimpse of home, but nothing had changed. Vigil’s Keep had remained essentially the same since the time of the Avvars. The main fortress was built atop a rise commanding the mouth of the Hafter River where it emptied into the Forlorn Cove. A signal fire lit from its towers could shine as far west as Highever and as far south as Denerim. It controlled watchtowers that lined both the Waking Sea and the Amaranthine Ocean, warning of Tevinter invasion in the past millennia.

Although the outer and inner baileys were constructed of newer granite, Nathaniel knew the old keep had roots that reached deep into the natural limestone of the cliffs. He’d never ventured much past the cellars, but his nurse had told stories of the ancient crypts of the Avvar barbarians who had held the coast in the time before the Howes came to power. Beneath the castle proper were relics of the old gods and the remains of the earliest warriors to live, fight, and die there. Whispers told of restless spirits and vengeful demons waiting to ensnare wandering children – or so his nurse had warned him.

Well past midnight, he crept past the guardsmen on sentry duty. He didn’t recognize any of the faces and wondered what had happened to the sworn swords of House Howe. _They were probably executed along with my father,_ he grimly mused.

There was a way through to the kitchen bailey, as only a child grown roaming the castle grounds would have discovered. The small kitchen spring trickled out under the mortared wall, through the outer bailey, and joined with the larger Hafter River on its way to the sea. But Nathaniel knew the grate that reached down into the cold waters didn’t reach the stream bed. He stripped to his smallclothes, stuffing the rest of his gear into his sealskin bag, and wriggled his way under the wall and into the castle.

When he had first set out to sneak into the keep, Nathaniel had planned – he didn’t know what. Maybe he planned to attack the wardens? Maybe he was going to poison the stores in the pantry? Perhaps he had a thought to assassinate the new commander. But now that he was within the walls of Vigil’s Keep, he changed his mind and only wanted to salvage what few mementos remained to his family.

Unbidden, his feet turned toward the north wing of the castle where the family suites were located. Here, the corridors were dark and the ashlars showed the outlines where ancestral tapestries had once hung. Only one brazier out of three was lit, and the sconces looked ill kept, as the soot blackening the walls above testified. It spoke volumes that he didn’t encounter a guardsman even once on his trek to his family’s former quarters, and he soon discovered why. The rooms had been emptied of their belongings.

Thinking the trophy room might still harbor some of the heirlooms of the Howe family, Nathaniel took the spiral stair in the northwest tower. A shadow crossed the second landing, and he held his breath, but no one came up the steps. When the echo of their footsteps died away, he slunk down the hall in the direction of the trophy room. Unfortunately, this way was brightly lit and evidently held high traffic. At every intersecting corridor, he saw signs of preparation; a rack of spare candles and torches, and a fully stocked weapons rack - just what was needed in case the enemy pressed its cause within the walls.

A murmur of voices alerted him and he ducked into the nearest door. A broom handle tangled around his legs and he caught the end with one leather boot before it could clatter to the floor. The small storeroom didn’t leave much space, and by the time the serving folk left the corridor, Nathaniel was feeling the strain in his shoulders from hunching into the small area.

The trophy room was near the center of the keep proper, surrounded on all sides by council chambers, the seneschal’s office, the throne room, and the receiving hall. He crept in through the double oaken doors, split and banded with iron, to find the next room dark. Pulling his flint and a taper from his bags Nathaniel had a weak flickering light to hand with which to inspect the room.

On the west wall, he discovered that the family crest that used to be mounted above the double doors now leaned lopsidedly in the corner on the floor, the wooden sides showing damage from where it had been pried from the stonework. It was too large to take with him, so he moved on to the shelves and glass-front cupboards. He found a ceremonial dagger with ivory inlaid in the hilt. The blade was engraved with the family motto: _A Thousand Vigils So That Others May Live._ It harkened to the old days when the keep was still called the Fort of a Thousand Vigils and was considered the first line of defense on the northeast coast of Ferelden. He slid the blade into the top of his boot. A few minutes later, he found the ancestral sword that his father claimed was gifted by a dwarven king to the first Howe. The hilt was cracked, the blade notched and dull, and there weren’t any scabbards to be seen nearby. He’d have to leave this memento behind as well. On the shelves on the north wall, he noticed small portraits of his sister and brother, as well as a few trinkets he remembered from childhood. These he deposited into his bag.

So engrossed was he in recovering his family’s things that he failed to notice the soldiers that had followed him into the trophy room. He rounded the last display table only to come face to face with a man in leather carrying a short hafted spear. His tabard was a deep blue with steel plates sewn down the front.

A warden. Even worse, an _Orlesian_ warden.

Before the soldier could say a word, Nathaniel punched him in the throat where a gorget should have been. _Serves him right for only wearing a brigandine and tabard,_ he thought. But as the man crumpled to the floor, another warden stepped from the side of the doorway. This one held her halberd at the ready, and though she may have not been wearing a great helm, she’d at least had the sense to wear her cuirass within the keep’s walls.

“Hold, thief!” she commanded, sweeping the blunt end of her halberd at his feet.

Spinning, he quick-stepped out of the way and circled to the warden’s backside. Nathaniel kicked the back of her knee, sending her crashing to the floor in her heavy plate. Two down, but more would definitely be on their way, so he sprinted out the double doors, swinging his satchel onto his back as he ran. If he stayed to finish them both, he’d risk getting caught. And besides, he didn’t come here to kill common soldiers, even if they were from Orlais. At the next intersection of corridors, he saw four more wardens in various modes of dress barreling towards him. The shout from the sentries must have woken them from the barracks.

The hallway was much too narrow to try firing off one of his arrows, so he pulled his daggers from his belt. In his right, he held a steel rondel dagger and in his left, an edged blade he liked to call his toothpick. Throwing knives would have been perfect here, but those he’d left outside the keep with his hidden supply cache. So as the armored men rushed towards him, Nathaniel darted in, giving the first to arrive a hard kick in the groin where his tasset split. Then the rest were on him.

Here in the tight corridor, the wardens resorted to short swords and stilettos for close combat. Their reach was longer than Nathaniel’s, so he stepped in closer, frustrating their efforts. Lunging forward on his right foot, he punched the rondel dagger straight through the mail coat of the shortest of his attackers, but the hard padded leather gambeson the man wore beneath stopped the point of his dagger from passing through. It was enough to knock the air from his lungs though.

A quick pirouette brought Nathaniel behind the other two who were trying to climb over their fallen comrades. He knew he had to move quickly before the first regained their footing. He tossed his rondel dagger at the face of the one of the soldiers still on her feet to buy some time and slid a spare dagger from his belt. Now he had two edged weapons.

Thankfully, Nathaniel had snuck into the keep in only studded leathers and cloth, keeping him light on his feet. These new wardens on the scene were better dressed than the others so had to maneuver in an extra fifty pounds of plate. Plus, no one knew these halls as he did.

His daggers spun in his hands, catching the light from the wall sconces and shining like stars. It was no more than a fancy movement for showmanship, but it was enough of a distraction for the soldiers. He darted in with a few pinpoint strikes, slashing at gaps in the armor under their arms and at the joints of their knees. The blue of the uniforms began to darken with blood. It wasn’t enough to kill them, but the lacerations should help slow them down and give him time to make his escape.

And escape he should. Nathaniel wasn’t particularly skilled in dueling. He was more accomplished at archery and flank attacks. He knew if he tried to take a stand, he wouldn’t last long against so many armored soldiers. Dodging around the two still on their feet, he began sprinting down the east corridor, a dagger in each hand and his heavy bag slamming his back at every step. Just when he could see the bailey door that led out of the keep, a page boy backed out of the larder doorway pulling a cart with him.

That brought his steps up short, and nimble, agile Nathaniel went down in a crash, tangled with the boy and cart and broken crockery and whew - spilled chamber pots. The thunder of footsteps followed him, and one of the wardens flopped on top of the pile, crushing him with the weight of their armor. It was not the most elegant of moves, but it was effective. The back of his head struck the flagstones and all he saw was a flash of white accompanied by hot pain.

Red stone, black bars, a spattering of straw, and a tin tray of water greeted his eyes when he came to. Two guards grunted in his direction when he called out to them, but that was all the interaction he received. The wardens had stripped him of his possessions before throwing him in his cell, for certainly this was the keep’s gaol. This building must be a new addition to the grounds, because he had no memory of it. In fact, there were proper dungeons below the cellars that he recalled and wondered that he wasn’t kept there instead.

Before the candle clock had burned half way, the sound of shouting and clashing steel rang through the reinforced door. These weren’t the usual sounds of sparring practice. He began to feel nervous and felt his clothes dampen with sweat. His gaolers, after much anxious discussion, abandoned him and ran out into the fray after some hurried, mumbled discussion. Through the door, Nathaniel could see the glow of fire and the chaotic movements of running figures in the dark bailey beyond. Left clad in only his sailcloth breeches, he felt vulnerable and still sore from the beating he’d taken from the wardens earlier in the night.

_Burn it all!_ They were leaving him to die by whomever or whatever was attacking the keep.

After a time, the sounds of battle faded, punctuated only occasionally by horrendous screams or a sickening crunching sound. He paced nervously in the confinement of his cell, too afraid to let down his guard. Though what he could possibly do without weapons or even clothing was beyond him. At one point in the night, the whole building was shaken by an explosion and he could hear the rumble of falling masonry in the distance. From the direction of the sound, he imagined it was near the portcullis.

The light limning the doorway let him know more than a day had passed since the sounds of battle first echoed in the bailey. His cell guard, a young, freckle-faced woman, little more than a girl, really, came into the building. The conical helm sat crooked on her head and the cuirass was too big. A few dark brown stains attested to it being borrowed armor.

“You, there,” she stuttered. “The Warden-Commander will see you now.”

As soon as the guard finished speaking, two more figures entered through the iron-banded door. The man in steel plate and graying hair was Varel, his father’s former secretary. The other figure strode in wearing massive armor, the dull sheen of red hinting the plate was crafted from dragonbone. Nathaniel had seen few pieces crafted from the material, but he knew it was far superior to most alloys. It was still spattered with blood.

“Varel, there is some mistake,” he began hastily. He stopped when Varel made a subtle motion with his hand to silence him.

“So you’re the thief that snuck into my keep just before the ambush,” the woman said as she removed her griffon helm.

Her black hair hung barely to her chin and was tied back in twists to keep the locks from her eyes. The dark skin and hooked nose spoke of mixed Rivaini blood, though her Highever heritage was plain as day to Nathaniel. He’d spent too many autumns hunting with Fergus Cousland not to recognize the same grey eyes. This was his friend’s little sister in front of him.

Maedb Cousland was the Warden-Commander. Maedb Cousland was his father’s killer.

“So you’re the monster that murdered my family and stole our lands,” he sneered at her. “I thought you’d be taller.”

She took a step towards his cell, just out of his reach but close enough that he could smell the traces of putrid flesh that still clung to her armor.

“Nathaniel Howe, you’re a traitor’s son,” she said, spitting through the bars. The gob splashed his foot and he could see the spittle was tinged pink with blood. “Did you let these darkspawn into the keep? For what? Some petty revenge?”

“My family may be pariahs now, but I’d never ally with blasted ‘spawn,” Nathaniel said. “I came to kill you myself. I don’t need some bloody genlock to do it for me.”

She snorted. “The guards told Varel they found you sneaking through the keep the day before I arrived. Apparently it took four wardens to take you down, but you somehow avoided causing any fatal injuries. That isn’t exactly a sound plan for assassinating me when I wasn’t even in the keep yet. Show me, Private Burlin,” she said to the cell guard.

“Of course, Commander.” The other woman, Burlin, went to a chest at the side of the room, pulling out Nathaniel’s personal things and dumping his sack on the table. Maedb fingered the objects he had lifted from the trophy room.

“A locket, a doll made from wheat stalks, a blunted dagger that I doubt could slice cheese…These aren’t the weapons of a killer. You were here to, what, rescue childhood toys?” she mused.

Varel broke his silence at Maed's side. “Nathaniel has been in the Free Marches for more than eight years, Commander. He had no part in Teyrn Loghain’s rebellion nor Rendon Howe’s plans to attack your family. Perhaps he came to only retrieve his family’s heirlooms.”

She spun to face the cell once more. “Is that what this is? You came back to steal these things?”

“It’s not stealing if they’re mine!” Nathaniel said to her vehemently.

“What should the sentence be for a thief?” she asked him. “A hand? The noose?”

“Kill me if you must, just as you killed my family. If you let me go, I’ll only come back. And I guarantee you won’t catch me next time,” he said frankly.

“Enough,” she said, turning back to Varel and the cell guard. “I’ve decided what to do with him, Varel.”

“Yes, Commander?” the Varel asked.

“I’m conscripting him into the wardens,” said Maedb as she headed back toward the door that led to the bailey.

“But, but is that wise, Commander?” the Private Burlin called out. “He as much as admitted he wants to kill you.”

Maedb Cousland turned back at the door, meeting Nathaniel’s eyes. “Some of my best friends have wanted me dead. What’s one more?”

“Varel,” Nathaniel said, “What just happened?”

“Nate, I’m sorry,” Varel said. “At least you won’t hang for treason as Captain Garevel suggested to the Commander earlier.”

“But…the wardens? Is she serious?” he asked.

“I’m afraid so. The keep was ambushed before the Commander arrived in Amaranthine. The wardens, well, all the wardens we’ve found so far are dead, but some of the bodies are still missing or too badly mangled to identify,” Varel explained.

“All of them?” He couldn’t imagine it, even though he’d heard the sounds of battle outside the gaol.

“Aside from King Alistair in Denerim, the Commander is the last warden in Ferelden. Again.”

The look on Varel’s face told Nathaniel how grim the situation truly was.

“Come on, let’s get you dressed,” Varel said as the cell guard finally unlocked the bars. “The Joining takes place within the hour. I shouldn’t tell you this but, well, there was another Joining earlier this morning. Three took the vows, but only two survived the ceremony.”

So it was an execution after all, he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [Yavannie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Yavannie/pseuds/Yavannie) for being an outstanding beta. I couldn't have come this far without you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maedb Cousland has a strong sense of duty.

 

> _“Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you.”_

Maedb watched impassively as the man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor. Seneschal Varel bent over Howe’s prone body and pronounced him strong enough to survive the Joining. She made herself watch and wait to witness him draw breath again and stir upon the flagstones.

_Maker’s blood!_ He looked just like his father. Nathaniel’s brow might be heavier, his jaw more square than Rendon’s, but there was no mistaking that nose. The man had made the poor choice of wearing his long, dark brown hair just like the traitor Loghain Mac-Tir, complete with the braided sidelocks. That was another mark against him, as far as she was concerned.

As much as even the mere sight of him turned her blood to boiling, she owed it to him, her new recruit, to witness his Joining. As Warden-Commander, she was resolved to be present for as many Joining ceremonies as possible. She knew better than anyone the risks her recruits took to enter her rank of soldiers. Their fates were sealed with death - either now in this most solemn of ceremonies - or alone, in the dark, in the Deep Roads.

But this was different. This man was a Howe. His father had murdered her family and usurped the Teyrnir of Highever. Her beloved parents, her brother’s dear wife, her innocent nephew - all were now dead and gone. Nathaniel Howe represented everything she hated, all her nightmares, all her fears. She would never have been forced to escape that night and join the Grey Wardens if it hadn’t been for Howe treachery.

And so Maedb stayed and watched the man drink from the silver chalice. She knew she needed every able-bodied person to fight the darkspawn, but a part of her, a not so very small part of her, wished this man would choke on the darkspawn blood. She wished that the raw lyrium would trace his veins in silver and that the foul concoction would strangle the life from his body.

Maedb watched his chest rise and fall, confirming Varel’s prognosis. _A pity._

“Take him to the infirmary. Alert me when he recovers.”

Her new recruits were expecting their orders, so she turned heel and stalked out of the throne room. The improvised barracks since the attack were just down the corridor in what Varel told her were the former servants quarters. At least, they were the quarters for the human servants. Rendon Howe had made the elven servants sleep in the outbuildings in the bailey. Luckily, after his execution, many of the elves in his service left the estate. If they had still been in the outbuildings during the darkspawn attack, well, Maedb shuddered just thinking about it.

When she walked though the splintered door, she found the room divided by a rough-spun rope hung with a few sheets of un-dyed linen. The long room held little more than cots and a footlocker or two. There were so many beds cramped into the space that the people who had lived there previously couldn’t have enjoyed much privacy, and that was apparently what had set the two men to bickering.

“Listen here, you dirty little dwarf, if you come on my side of the room one more time, I’ll show you why mages are feared,” Anders threatened.

Anders was presently trying to pull the makeshift curtain closed, but the linen wasn’t quite long enough to block the width of the room. Somewhere, he had found clean robes, blue with a green and brown striped overtunic, but his hide shoes still showed stains from the battle the previous night. And although he’d had a chance to scrub his face, his blond hair still showed streaks of dried blood.

“I’d like to see you give it a try, light skirt. Dwarves are resistant to magic,” the dwarf Oghren shot back. He punctuated it with a loud belch.

“Ugh! It smells like something died in your mouth,” said Anders. He pushed both sleeves back on his arms and a suspicious glow appeared between the palms of his hands.

Maedb had heard enough. She slammed shut what remained of the door and both men jumped, avoiding her eyes sheepishly. “Not four hours ago, we were on the ramparts killing a talking darkspawn, the keep currently has more dead bodies than alive, and the wounded are waiting for a surgeon who will never come because his head is outside on a pike. But what do I find here? A couple of whining children playing pranks.”

“Oh, come on, Commander. We was just lightening the mood. You know, for morale,” Oghren protested while he finger combed his beard and quickly rebraided the bristly hair. Seeing him now, he had stripped from his armor since his own Joining ceremony this morning and was padding through the room in just his leathers and bare feet. The dwarven warrior was absolutely covered in masses of curly, bright-red hair.

“Well, you can lighten the mood by helping the survivors,” she snapped. She reached up and massaged her temples. “Listen, I know you both need a break. But we weren’t the only ones who fought off the ambush. Come.”

There was a small, three legged table in the corner, and she pulled a couple of chairs over to it. However, it wasn’t until she pulled the wineskin from her belt and set it in front of her that the other men sat to join her. Maedb waited until both had taken a mouthful before she continued.

“Captain Garevel’s men are looking for the breach in our defenses as we speak, so what I want is for us to help the injured as best we can without the surgeon. Oghren,” she said, turning to him.

“Commander.”

“I want you coordinating with the captain,” she ordered. “Garevel may know the keep, but you know darkspawn. Now that you’re a Grey Warden, you’ll be able to sense them when they’re near in case there are any stragglers. The captain’s men don’t have that luxury. If you come across any of the injured, send them to the small hall. The seneschal said he’d keep a couple of runners with each of Garevel’s guard companies, so you won’t have to lose any fighters just to send them off.”

Oghren grunted his assent.

“Oh, and grab a bowl in the kitchens on the way out. I can’t guarantee what’s in the pot, but at least it smells edible. I don’t need you swooning on your first day as a warden,” Maedb joked at him.

The dwarf just grinned. “If you just let me keep this here fortified wine, I’ll be fine Commander.”

It wasn’t a hard decision to pass him the wineskin. After all, he’d spent most of the Blight in a drunken state, and that hadn’t affected his fighting skills in the slightest. “Now, Anders,” she began once Oghren had trotted out the doorway.

“Yes, my lady.”

“You call me Commander or Warden-Commander for one thing,” she insisted.

“Yes, Commander.”

“This won’t be like the Circle. I won’t keep you in a cell or limit your magic use, but I expect you to work all the same. Follow me.”

They used the northwest tower and climbed to the second floor. Halfway down the hall, they came to an ironwood door carved with flowering vines. It opened onto a large room partly filled with crates and folded cots. Windows comprised the south wall that overlooked the inner courtyard, letting in the bright summer sunlight.

“The seneschal showed me this room earlier today. It used to be the women’s solar when Lady Howe was still alive. I thought it might serve as the infirmary, at least in the warmer months.” Maedb led Anders through the room to show him the details. “There’s a private garderobe and two separate side chambers that might serve as bedrooms.”

“That’s all well and good, Commander, but what does that have to do with me?” he asked.

“Anders, you were great in combat. Don’t think I didn’t appreciate your damage spells. But you know healing magic, too, don’t you?” Maedb asked. “There were several times during a fight where I felt rejuvenated and we all came out of there with fewer wounds than I would have expected.”

Just then, a young page walked into the solar balancing a tray of bandages and salve pots. She stopped in front of Maedb and Anders and stammered out a few words with a hasty curtsey. “Serrahs, I brought the supplies you asked for. Sergeant Maverlies kept some of the cloth for field dressing, so this is all I could bring with me.”

Maedb put a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Anders, Embri will stay and help with anything you need. Her mother has already been moved here with your other patient, so you can use her as a runner since she’ll be underfoot anyway.”

“My other patient?”

She gestured toward the end of the room cordoned off with standing screens. “Embri’s mother Keelen plus another warden recruit recovering from the Joining. I had them brought this morning. Maverlies will attend to the lesser injuries down in the small hall. The more serious wounded will be carried up to you. Notify me when the man wakes up.”

As Maedb walked out of the room, she heard the little girl find her tongue.

“Ser, can you really do magic? The sergeant says you can use magic to help my mum. The other servants are too afraid to come here because they said mages are dangerous. But if you can help her, then you’re not so bad, right?”

Anders’ sigh could be heard in the hall where Maedb waited just out of sight.

“Do you want to see a magic trick Embri?” She heard Anders ask after a few moments.

When the girl started giggling, Maedb peered through the crack in the door and saw that the mage had conjured snowflakes just above the girl’s head.

Satisfied they’d do just fine, she walked off to find her chambers. Seneschal Varel had suggested she take the suite of rooms that used to belong to Rendon, but her stomach turned just thinking about living in his quarters. Instead, she had claimed a smaller set of rooms down the hall that overlooked the cove to the northeast. Varel had said they belonged to the late arlessa but had been uninhabited since her passing. A connecting door led to a storeroom of sorts filled with furniture and chests covered in drop cloths. Thankfully, someone had already been through to bring a water pitcher and change the bed linens.

Maedb tried sleeping and she tried going over the missives from Weisshaupt. Instead, she found herself standing down in the practice yard in her training leathers. It was too quiet she felt. The recent massacre at the keep had depleted the soldiers and staff, leaving the bailey silent when on any normal day the ringing of steel on steel and pounding feet on the dirt would have been deafening. Standing still near the door to the empty barracks, her ears strained for the hurled commands and grunts of recruits that should have been there, but everyone was either dead or deployed on the search for the injured folk of the keep and straggling darkspawn.

_Why him? Why not Mhairi or Daveth or the countless others? Why did the Maker spare Nathaniel Howe?_

But the Maker had no answers for her.

She spun on her heel and stalked into the dark armoury to grab a tourney sword and a small buckler from the rack. Back in the yard, she chose the nearest training dummy and proceeded to pummel it with all her might. It wasn’t until someone pulled her back to her feet that Maedb realized she’d reduced the dummy to splinters and rags before falling to her knees.

“Ancestors have mercy, Commander!” Oghren shouted in her ear as he tugged on her pauldrons. “I think the dummy is done for. You can stop now.”

She dropped the sword and buckler and bent forward, resting her hands on her thighs. A few moments of controlled breathing calmed the pounding in her temples and she could feel her heart rate return to normal. She straightened up and was relieved to see the dwarf was the only one in the practice yard with her. It wouldn’t do to have the new commander lose her cool the second day on the job.

“I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “If you ever want training as a berserker, I’m yer man.”

Maedb barked a laugh at that and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks Oghren, but I’d hate to show you up.” She snagged the wine skin from his belt and took a mouthful, swishing it around her mouth and spitting it into the dirt.

The two of them traded good-natured insults for a few minutes before Oghren cleared his throat and swiped the wine back from her. “We, uh, found the break-in, Commander,” he said, taking a swig himself. “Poor blasted fools didn’t have a chance. The dungeons run deep here, they do. Under the fortress ancient halls and chambers are carved from the limestone of the cliffs. They go far enough to intersect with the Deep Roads. Garevel and his men told me that the Avvar who lived here before used to trade with the dwarves. Well we found a cave-in from there leading to darkspawn tunnels.”

“So it wasn’t our thief,” she said in a flat voice.

“No, ser. The masons are down there now with some workers trying to clear the debris enough to make some repairs.”

As they left the yard and entered the keep, a page came sprinting down the front hall, skidding to a stop in front of them.

“S-s-ser-serrahs!”

This wasn’t Embri, the girl she’d left in Anders’ care. This was a boy of perhaps six years with a dirty face and no shoes. He stared up at Maedb and Oghren with awe, mouth agape. Maedb squatted down in front of him, resting her elbows on her knees.

“What is your message?”

“The, the mage sent me. It’s about the man from the gaol. He’s waking up, serrah.”

Shooting to her feet, she passed over the boy to Oghren’s care and made for the infirmary, the sound of her boots drumming on the flagstones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to my beta Yavannie!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathaniel learns more about his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful beta Yavannie!

>   _The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men. Not the will of the Maker._

Nathaniel awoke to light streaming around him, unsure of his surroundings. The dungeon had been dark and feebly lit with torches. With vague nightmares still swimming at the edges of his memory, it took him a moment to realize he was in the women’s solar. Only now it appeared to be retrofitted as a sick room of sorts.

“Where is the Cousland girl?” he managed to croak once he had gathered his wits about him.

A blonde man wearing the robes of a healer offered him a bowl of water. Once he was able to swallow, he tried again.

“Where is m’Lady Cousland?” He had been an ass to her when they’d met in the dungeon.

“You mean the Warden-Commander? You should refer to her as the Commander of the Grey Wardens,” the healer corrected him. “I already sent a page for her. She left explicit instructions to be notified as soon as you woke.”

Nathaniel tried to reconcile his memory of the girl he knew as Fergus’ little sister, but he’d been in the Free Marches for too long; eight years actually. The woman he’d seen last night had been a stranger to him. Maedb Cousland was no longer the little nuisance of a child that ran at her brother’s heels pretending to be his squire. Gone were the pigtails and wooden sword that hung at her waist. Now her weapon carried an edge and her eyes were just as sharp.

She still reeked of Mabari hounds though. There were just some things you couldn’t change about Ferelden children, he guessed.

“The Warden-Commander,” he began after wetting his lips from the bowl. “Is she, is she good to the Arling? The common folk. Do they suffer?”

“How would I know? I’m a fugitive apostate, or I was until the Commander invoked the right of conscription. You could ask the seneschal I guess,” the other man replied.

“Or you could ask me.”

Her voice froze him and he saw the healer - or rather the mage - look over his shoulder at someone standing behind his cot.

“Beg pardon, Warden-Commander. Your new warden has just woken up. I already sent a page to find you-“

“It’s fine, Anders. This is Nathaniel Howe. He was to be the heir to the Arling of Amaranthine before King Alistair bestowed it and the keep on the Grey Wardens. To him, we’re an invading force, after all. He’s just concerned for his people, as I would be in his place.”

Nathaniel looked up at that and met her eyes. He was surprised to see so much understanding reflected there, and she gave him a nod.

“Commander, I, I don’t know what happened at Highever, but I don’t want the people of Amaranthine to suffer for what my father did.”

She held up a hand to stop him from speaking.

“Maker’s breath, man,” said the mage-healer. “The Commander just got to Vigil’s Keep, and she walked into an ambush. I don’t think she’s had time to wreak vengeance on-“

“Anders, you’re dismissed,” she commanded.

The Warden-Commander waited until Anders left the infirmary. She was not wearing the dragonbone plate armor he saw yesterday. Instead, she wore a gambeson, a simple padded leather under-tunic, the lacing loose at her throat, and hide trousers. Her sword was still at her waist as well as a belt knife. She settled down on a stool next to his cot and pulled a pendant strung on a leather thong from her pocket.

“Nathaniel Howe, you are now a member of the Grey Wardens.” She passed him the heavy cord. “This is a reminder of your Warden’s Oath. This amulet contains a trace amount of the same darkspawn blood used in your ritual, the same taint that even now runs through your veins. May this ever be a reminder of your constant vigil against the darkspawn hordes.”

Nathaniel tied it around his neck and felt it rest heavily against his breastbone. It was warm against his skin, whether from the heat of her body or some magical property of the blood, he was uncertain.

“Commander, I-“

“Warden Howe, let me finish.” Her voice held the unmistakable ring of command, and he let his words fall silent.

“Only a small number of recruits survive the Joining ceremony. As you are now one of the initiated, I can tell you that being a Grey Warden is not a job you can leave or a title you can abdicate - it will be forever who you are. With the blood of the darkspawn and a bit of the archdemon, you will forever be linked to the hordes of the deep. You will sense when they are near and be plagued with nightmares. Some wardens even have visions or hear the archdemon call to them in their dreams, especially during a Blight. I know I did. This can be used to our advantage so that we may plan our troop movements and deploy our armies when best needed. This comes with a price, however.”

“You mean besides the bad dreams?” he asked dryly.

“At first, you will be hungry. You will feel famished as you never have before, until your body adapts to the taint. There is also decreased fertility, especially into your later years, and you also have less time to live - ten years, fifteen. The lucky ones live another thirty. There will come a day when you hear the voices grow stronger within your mind, and the Calling will send you on the Long Walk into the Deep Roads to fight one last time.” She paused then and waited for his response.

“I guess ten years is better than an immediate execution by hanging for treason.” He tried to sound glib, but he knew she could hear the resignation in his voice. “Did you want me around just so you could watch your enemy die slowly?”

“An archdemon can only be killed, truly killed, by a Grey Warden. King Alistair and I…we fought the archdemon at Denerim. If we had fallen in battle, or to disease, or to food poisoning, or to a fall off a horse…or executed as traitors to the crown as some would have it…all of Ferelden would have succumbed to the Blight.” She caught his eyes and held them.

He suddenly realized what she was saying. It hadn’t mattered how large the armies had been. Without the Grey Wardens…if Nathaniel’s father Rendon had killed them, or if the regent Loghain had been successful in their capture and execution of the remaining wardens…all of Denerim, all of Ferelden, would have been lost.

“That is why, Warden Howe, I must set aside any fantasies of revenge and work with a traitor’s son. You may think that I want you under my boot so I might watch you die the slow death of the darkspawn taint, but know that I will die slowly at your side, and likely before you. Because nothing is more important than pressing back the tide of darkspawn - not even vengeance for my family. Can you say you feel the same?”

“Yes, Warden-Commander. I can.” And he meant it, he was surprised to discover.

Commander Cousland stood up at that, turned heel, and strode out of the infirmary. She walked with the rolling gait of an experienced swordsman, he thought, as he watched her scabbard jounce against her calf as she stalked away down the hall.

Coming back to Vigil’s Keep was going to be difficult to be sure. Watching his family’s estate being converted to a warden fortress and barracks pulled at his heart strings. But at least Nathaniel knew he’d be serving under a commander he thought he could respect.

The mage Anders came back into the infirmary once the commander had left. Nathaniel realized they weren’t alone in the room when he saw the man check on the injured lying on other cots. At times, children ventured hesitantly into the room bearing trays of broth or pots of salves and then retreat to the hall, peeking through the door at him.

“So, you’re a mage,” Nathaniel said. It wasn’t a question.

“So, you’re the son of a traitor,” Anders responded with the same flat, accusatory voice.

“What’s with all the bandages and tonics?” he asked him. “I thought mages could just wave their hands around and make it all better.”

“Apparently it has escaped your notice, but we just fought off a party of darkspawn while you took a nap in your cell,” Anders snapped at him. “We’re all running on reserves, myself included. So either help me, or get out of my infirmary. The commander wants you to report to that smelly dwarf of hers down in the small hall anyway.”

Nathaniel levered himself up from the cot, which was a lot harder than he had imagined. Flinging out a hand to steady himself against the wall, residual scenes from his nightmares flashed in his mind. _That’s right. Cousland said I’d be plagued with these visions the rest of my life._ Once the fit passed, he gathered up his belongings, surprised to find they’d left him with all his weapons. That spoke volumes about how much they trusted him, which made Nathaniel all the more curious.

About halfway down the stairs in the northwest tower, he encountered Secretary Varel, or rather Seneschal Varel as the man was quick to inform him, on his way up. They’d had not had much time to talk the night before - _was it just last night?_ \- but now that he had the time to study his father’s old clerk, he saw the years had not been kind to him. But perhaps that limp and the way his shoulder hung was a remnant from the recent ambush.

Varel turned about and followed Nathaniel downstairs, quickly filling him in on the ‘truth’ about what his father Rendon had been up to while he’d been away in the Free Marches. Thankfully, Varel had stayed on in his service, despite being demoted, and had tried to ameliorate the majority of the damage wreaked by the arl over the years. It was still hard for him to believe his father had committed such horrific acts, but it did serve to alter his opinions of the Grey Wardens. Somewhat. He still couldn’t condone losing his brother and sister on top of the dissolution of the family estate.

His meeting with the ‘smelly dwarf’ Anders had warned him about was quicker than he anticipated, and it wasn’t long before he found himself riding at the back of a small troop of soldiers headed to the city of Amaranthine. The commander rode in the front accompanied by Sergeant Maverlies, there was a nearly empty wagon driven by one of the privates, and Nathaniel and another three of the keep’s soldiers rode at the back. This soon after the Joining, he kept expecting to _feel_ something strange, as if some sort of extra sense that would tell him of lurking darkspawn. To everyone’s relief, none made an appearance.

Before they could even see the portcullis, he could hear the tumult of the crowd of refugees pressing to enter the city. The road leading through the gate was teeming with families and broken wagons, hastily erected lean-tos, and stray dogs. It hurt him to see the people of his family’s arling resort to begging at the city’s gates, but it surprised him even more to see the commander reign up her horse and yank off her helm to confer with the sergeant before proceeding through the mob.

“Maverlies, Varel didn’t warn me about the state of the refugees. Why are they not on their farms?” Commander Cousland asked.

“Vigil’s Keep wasn’t the only place to suffer a darkspawn ambush, Commander. There have been attacks on the farms and outlying towns for several weeks now. There have been few survivors, so the Orlesian wardens stationed at the keep would only learn of the attacks days afterwards. Our patrols haven’t had any luck in tracking the genlocks, either, so,” Maverlies left off her explanation there when she saw how the commander’s face had darkened.

“That doesn’t explain why they’re still encamped outside the city’s walls,” Cousland said angrily. “If there’s an attack, they’d be pinned between the darkspawn and the city with nowhere to run. It would be a blood bath!”

“The city watch commander said-” Maverlies began.

“I don’t care what that fool said. Sergeant, take two of the privates and gather the refugees. Whomever wants it, can have a place at Vigil’s Keep. Make sure let to Varel know I’ve taken care of the problem he brought to me this morning.”

“But-”

“That’s an order.”

Maverlies took up two of the soldiers that rode behind the wagon and conferred quietly with them. The three dismounted and each walked off towards different parts of the refugee camp to talk with the folk who massed beneath the city walls.

Nathaniel couldn’t ride at the back of the wagon anymore after hearing that exchange. He trotted his horse up to flank the commander and leant over to ask quietly, “What do you have planned for the people, Commander?”

She shot him a sharp look, lips pressed into a firm line. “What I plan is to feed them. And give them someplace to sleep.”

He took a couple of deep breaths, unsure of how to begin in a way that wouldn’t irk her. “I meant only that I appreciate you taking care of them, but won’t our resources be tight?”

The commander’s face began to relax and she barked a laugh. “Actually, the keep has a surplus right now. The ambush killed so many of our soldiers and the resident servants that our food stores have more than enough to feed these refugees. The seneschal even whined to me this morning about being short-handed of serving staff, so it’s not as though our folk will be housed and fed for free. We have more than enough work to go around for them.”

“Oh,” Nathaniel said. And after a brief moment he added, “Thank you.”

She gave him a curt nod and pulled her winged griffon helm back on top of her head. With a cluck to her horse, she moved their party onwards toward Amaranthine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always wanted to do something different with the refugees in Amaranthine, and this was my chance.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wardens investigate the Knotwood Hills.

  

> _“When the darkspawn came, Kal'Hirol was among the first of the great thaigs to fall. Our people still mourn the loss.” —From the writings of Shaper Ezerain_

  
That afternoon spent in the City of Amaranthine had set a fire under Maedb. Certainly the situation with the refugees was sad, but watching how the other city residents passed them by with complete apathy every time they traveled through the gates made her even more angry and determined to set things right. And of course the city guardsmen and various merchants lamented the lack of trade flowing into the city and how their business suffered with the influx of refugees. But what had worried her the most were reports from area hunters. They would never solve the problem with the refugees if the outlying farms weren’t safe from darkspawn ambushes.

Two hunters in particular, Micah and Colbert, had actively sought her out when they spotted her party arrive in the city. Apparently, they had been to Vigil’s Keep in the days before the ambush to report a sinkhole in the Knotwood Hills, but Captain Garevel had brushed them off. _A problem for another time._ Micah fell through the surface, emerged in what he labeled an ancient dwarven trade thoroughfare, and spied a troop of darkspawn who curiously ignored him. Maedb, in her short span of confronting the horde, had never even heard of ‘spawn bypassing the opportunity to kill others. So not only was it dangerous to leave the enemy unchecked, their behavior was suspicious. It was worth investigating, and soon.

Once things were settled at the keep, she took Oghren and her two new wardens with her into the west. Micah had drawn a crude map to guide the way so it was rather easy finding the sinkhole the hunters had discovered. Just as they had described, there were makeshift scaffolds and a stairwell leading from one end of the chasm that opened into an old dwarven tunnel. Whoever had made the attempt was obviously no craftsman, as the lumber was rotting in several places and appeared to be salvaged from some poor farmer’s outbuildings.

Since he was quickly proving adept at unearthing traps, Maedb ordered Nathaniel to lead the way. Following several yards behind, she was dismayed to feel the scaffold sway under her weight. When the contraption shuddered and bumped into the bedrock sending her skittering for something to grab onto, Maedb held up a hand, warning off Oghren and Anders to wait for her descent. Gingerly, she toed her way forward and felt something give beneath her feet. The decking she was perched on gave way with a sick, wet sound and sent her crashing through two more flights of stairs. The landing stunned her for a few moments, her armor likely causing more damage than the fall. By the time she regained her senses, Oghren and Anders had rigged a rope ladder of sorts to follow her to the bottom. They were still helping her to her feet when Nathaniel trotted out of the dark tunnel beyond to give his report.

“Dark…darkspawn!” he whispered anxiously, pointing back the way he’d come.

 _Oh, for Andraste’s sake!_ Maedb had forgotten that her new warden had never encountered darkspawn before. He had spent the whole of the last Blight in the Free Marches and hadn’t seen a bit of the fight in the ambush at the keep. It was one thing to finally see them, but quite another to feel the physical symptoms from close proximity. And Nathaniel Howe had just experienced both by himself for the first time.

She gathered her two new recruits, well, Oghren was new too, but as a dwarf, he’d been fighting darkspawn since basically birth and had been there at Fort Drakon with her, so he didn’t really count. “Listen. I know we touched on this during the Joining, but I wanted to remind you. You have the taint now, just like the darkspawn. This means you’re going to feel them when they’re near. You’ll feel them in your skin and it will be like an itching in the back of your mind. I don’t know of another way to explain it, but it’s like they’re a hive just like bees or something. They think together. Act together. Kill together. And larger groups think and act smarter than smaller groups. If you get a chance to isolate one – pick off outliers – take that chance. If we come across a large company, Oghren and I will keep the bulk occupied and you just need to lay down cover and take out the stragglers. If we can divide them, it will reduce their abilities to engage us. Use your connection to their minds to anticipate their attacks.”

 _We should really keep one alive in our gaol to expose the new recruits_ , she thought to herself. _That would make things so much easier for training._

She and Oghren both unsheathed their swords and she saw Nathaniel ready an arrow out of the corner of her eye as Anders adjusted the grip on his staff. Both men began to look pale and sick as they ventured deeper into the tunnel, undoubtedly feeling the touch of the taint on their minds as they brushed thoughts with the nearby darkspawn. Anders let fly a glowing orb ahead of their group to help light the way, as this part of the thaig seemed to have lost the dwarven engineering that allowed the walls to shine and guide them.

As they approached a bend in the passageway, the sound of a scuffle reached their ears. The frantic sound of an angrily cursing woman hastened Maedb’s feet, and she sprinted round a corner to confront a small party of hurlocks dragging a dwarf by the feet. She gripped a dirk in one fist and repeatedly stabbed at the backs of the knees of her captors as they hauled her away.

The sight of the woman being assaulted set Maedb’s flesh on fire and she felt the rush of battle rage course through her veins. _Was this how a berserker felt? Or did she feed off the killing lust of the darkspawn, mistaking their thirst for murder as her own?_ Just as Maedb let out a taunting bellow to draw the attention of the darkspawn, Oghren dashed around her, sending a two-handed sweep of his battleaxe at the knees of the nearest hurlock before she lost sight of him in the press of bodies. The crunch of bone and sinew was drowned out by the growls and shrieks of the other ‘spawn that quickly surrounded Maedb. She lashed out with her sword at one who darted in too close, sliced into his armpit, and then pummeled him twice in the face with her shield, leaving him stunned and vulnerable. An arrow sprouted in his neck before she even finished turning away to face her next opponent. _Good. Nate didn’t freeze._

“Anders! Weapons!” she shouted, hoping her new mage would pick up her commands just as quickly as Wynne had. Unfortunately, she was disappointed when her blade iced over instead of bursting into flames. Groaning inwardly, she hamstrung a fleeing genlock, but was spun on her feet when an arcane bolt hit her in the shoulder. The ‘spawn she had just crippled grabbed at her greaves and tried to drag her to the ground while she was distracted by the enemy mage further down the hall.

“Someone take out that emissary!” she screamed at no one in particular.

“Does this please you?” she heard Nathaniel Howe say sarcastically as he pinned the hurlock emissary with two arrows and rushed in to finish him with a dagger.

_Ugh, so he was going to be a snarky little bastard was he? At least he was a useful snarky bastard._

“Less talk, more arrows!” Maedb admonished him. She quickly jabbed the edge of her shield down into the nose of the genlock scrabbling at her feet, smashing through his skull with a thick wet sound and into what she could only assume counted as a brain in darkspawn. His death throes wormed their way into her mind, spreading a veil of red across her vision. Thankfully, darkspawn weren’t prone to fear, even during death, so she didn’t suffer panic as his life was snuffed out.

And just like that, the fight was over. She had barely had any time to track what her fellows had done, but Maedb was pleased to see none of the bodies in the tunnel wore warden armor. Nathaniel was busy retrieving arrows from a variety of places and she spied Anders setting Oghren’s shoulder for him. She turned when she heard the scuffle of booted feet on stone behind her. Oh, the dwarf. She’d forgotten the woman in the clash.

The dwarven woman was of a height with Oghren and beneath her half-helm, Maedb could see her dark skin was patterned with tattoos that did nothing to disguise the Casteless mark on her right cheek. She wore the armor of a scout from the Legion of the Dead, only a little lighter than the armor Oghren had salvaged from some burial tomb in the Deep Roads last year. When the dwarf bent down to retrieve a hand axe, she held one hand to her ribcage, drawing attention to her injuries.

“Well met, dwarf. I’m the commander of the Grey Wardens, stationed in Amaranthine,” she introduced herself.

“Sigrun. Legion of the Dead.” The dwarf leaned down to slit the throat of a lingering genlock and then wiped off the blade before sheathing it. “Wait - you’re the Hero of Ferelden, right? You’re something of a legend in Orzammar now after that stunt you pulled at the Dead Trenches. I wish I could take you back to the barracks. The rest of the Legion would love to meet you. Could you – could you sign my helmet?” Sigrun offered her dagger to Maedb so she could engrave her name on the steel helm.

“The Legion? I knew one of your commanders once,” Maedb said as she absentmindedly traced her house sigil into the metal. She’d learned in recent months how to play the hero. “Karda? No, Kardol. He and his men joined us in Denerim. He fought well.”

“By the Stone! I wish I’d been there for that fight,” Sigrun said cheerfully. “The songs they sung of that battle made the thaig rumble for months. And we breached not a few casks in honor of the fallen.”

She finally took a good look at Oghren when he removed his helmet. “You’re Branka’s husband, right?”

“Not anymore,” he grunted in response. Tugging at his moustaches, he added, “So what is a Legion scout doing this far from Orzammar?”

“My lieutenant thinks – thought - the darkspawn are up to something. The Blight is over, but there’ve been huge numbers pouring from the depths of Kal’Hirol. My unit went to investigate, but we were massacred. It was nothing like any of the fights with darkspawn I’d seen before – as if they’re smarter somehow. I need to go back there so I can at least report the situation to another unit so they are better prepared,” Sigrun explained. “Also, they - they took some of the women…”

Maedb quickly found Oghren’s gaze and saw agreement there. “We’ll come with you,” she said without hesitation.

“Commander, what do you expect us to do when even the Legion didn’t stand a chance?” Anders interrupted.

Maedb shot him a look. “I expect you to do your job as a Grey Warden and kill darkspawn, mage.”

“Yes, Commander,” Anders said, looking appropriately abashed. But as he walked off, she heard him mumble, “I’m starting to think the Circle was better. Back? We’re going back for more? My bruises have bruises…”

“And Anders,” she called out to his retreating back, “no more of those frost spells. I don’t want the enemy numb to their wounds. Set them on fire and burn them down fast.”

Nathaniel stepped up at that point and sketched a hasty bow to Sigrun. “My lady, I am Nathaniel Howe. We’ll do what we can for your comrades.”

Maedb snorted at his attempt at nobility. He was too naïve to know, but that sort of behavior wouldn’t go far with a dwarf from Dust Town.

Half an hour passed by while they healed their wounds and Nathaniel scouted ahead with Sigrun for traps and triggers in the hall. It had taken quite a bit more of Anders’ magic to heal the dwarves, as they were naturally resistant to magic, but as soon as Sigrun’s broken ribs had mended, the Legionaire scout had been practically excited to get back into the fight.

As they approached the main entrance to Kal’Hirol, the tunnel opened up into a great courtyard larger than the upper bailey at Vigil’s Keep. The outer wall rose several stories to a ceiling that was peppered with stalactites, some of which were as thick around as a whiskey barrel. At Sigrun’s suggestion, they triggered a secret door that would lead them past the main gate and into a side passage, allowing them to flank the waiting darkspawn and many of the traps built in by the previous owners of the thaig. Maedb discovered their new companion was quite the professional at locating and disabling the various pressure plates throughout the city.

It took several days for them to navigate the many passages of the abandoned city. She was unwilling to leave even one darkspawn living while she was there. Even one left alive was one more that could breach the surface and terrorize the people of Amaranthine. They were all surprised when it came to light that the thaig hadn’t been completely abandoned at the time it was overrun from the deep. Apparently, the rest of the dwarves had deserted the Casteless to their fate and hundreds had taken up arms to stand against the horde in order to buy some time for their fleeing comrades. Finding a stone tablet in the Trade Quarter with the names of the fallen sparked a debate between her dwarven allies, with Oghren pleased his Casteless brethren had stood their ground.

“I’m telling you, Oghren, you’re still Warrior caste,” Sigrun said as she cleaned her blades. “So you can’t claim the deeds of Dailan and the casteless that fell here.”

“Listen here, you duster. When I left Orzammar with the commander, I became a surfacer, so that means I’m Casteless too.” Oghren began mumbling curses beneath his breath.

Sigrun snorted. “You? Casteless?” She spit at his feet. “Did you fight for food among the others? Scrabbling for leavings thrown in the gutter, fighting for a blanket and a dark corner to sleep for the night. How old were you the first time you knifed another duster for a heel of bread? You may have left Orzammar and gone to the surface, but you went to fight the Blight with the Grey Wardens. And then you joined the Wardens. According to the Shaperate, anyone who fights darkspawn with the Wardens retains their caste. It’s been that way since the founding by Paragon Moroc the Maul. I’m offended you even claim Casteless status. You don’t even know how privileged you are.”

“Never mind who claims this victory for their own,” Maedb interrupted them. “When we’re done here, I’ll have the plaque sent to Orzammar. Let King Bhelen and his council figure this out.”

That night when they set camp, she overheard Nathaniel approach Sigrun when they switched watch.

“My lady, I couldn’t help but offer my respect for what you’ve endured,” he said with a slight bow. “When I saw you fight, I’d assumed you’d received your training from the Legion, or perhaps Orzammar’s army. I wanted you to know I understand poverty.”

“I thought you were a noble, was I wrong?” Sigrun asked. Her gaze found Maedb’s over Nate’s shoulder, cocking an eyebrow. All Maedb could do was try to hide her snort of disbelief.

“After the Blight,” he went on, “I came back from the Free Marches to find my family dead and gone and our estate seized. I had nothing. No money. No allies. So I admire you for surviving.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess,” Sigrun said with half a laugh. “But no one could say I survived. Legion of the Dead?” As she walked off, she gave him a smile and thumped his shoulder with her fist.

He opened his mouth a couple of times, looking nothing so much as like a fish out of water before beating a hasty retreat to begin his watch and make the rounds. Sigrun settled next to Maedb by their small fire and eagerly accepted a haunch of nug from the spit.

“Did he really try to compare six weeks of camping and hunting rabbits to your lifetime of abject poverty and scrounging for survival?” Maedb asked her.

“It’s alright,” Sigrun shrugged. “He’s a noble. At least he tried.” She pointed at Maedb’s ale skin. “Is that the good stuff?”

“You tell me,” she said, passing over the skin. “I breached a cask in one of the banquet rooms we cleared – don’t tell Oghren.”

After only a couple of sips, Sigrun began to cough. “It tastes like forge fire!”

Maedb scratched a few runes into the ash of their campfire. “These were branded on the cask.”

“Ah, Hirol’s Lava Burst!” Sigrun drank more deeply. “Then I’m honored. This is probably the last we’ll ever see of its like. I won’t say anything to Oghren if you won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out, I am without a beta. If anyone would be interested, you can contact me through my tumblr account.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathaniel learns the truth about darkspawn.

 

> _First day, they come and catch everyone._  
>  _Second day, the beat us and eat some for meat._  
>  _Third day, the men are all gnawed on again._  
>  _Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate._  
>  _Fifth day, they return and it’s another girl’s turn._  
>  _Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams._  
>  _Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew._  
>  _Eighth day, we hated as she is violated._  
>  _Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin._  
>  _Now she does feast, as she’s become the beast._  
>  _Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams._  
>  _\- Hespith of House Branka_

In the deeper chambers, they mostly found genlocks breaking through to sealed vaults or raiding the forges in search of armor and weapons. It had begun to wear on Nathaniel, the constant fighting, the constant attacks on his mind, the constant nightmares when he tried to sleep when they made camp. There were just too many darkspawn threading through the passageways and halls of the old thaig. No matter how many he killed, it seemed there were more dark forms scrabbling at his thoughts and tainting his emotions. It felt like even if they found a clear chamber, he could still hear their hammers and picks breaking into tombs in the floors below them or the sounds of dying ‘spawn from just down the hall.

And that was what worried him the most. Much of the time, they would reach a new quadrant of the city only to find the darkspawn already killing one another. This set both dwarves on edge and Nathaniel often spotted them whispering with the commander after discovering another batch of darkspawn had taken up arms against another.

“Is it madness?” “Could there be two?” “Paragons have mercy! Two old gods this close together?”

These snippets of conversation also concerned Anders, who explained to him in whispers that, “I read in the Circle that darkspawn will sometimes attack one another if they are in close proximity to two of the old gods at the same time. It sends the hordes into a frenzy to be the first to free their archdemon, and so they attack one another.”

Nathaniel looked over at his comrade. Anders leaned on his polearm, his original staff broken and abandoned several streets above them, and caught his breath. It was easy to forget that they both were new to the wardens. He was about to ask him another question when the man hushed him, straining to overhear more of what Maedb was saying to Oghren and Sigrun.

The commander walked back to where they rested in front of an old silversmith’s shop and they both straightened to face her. The past days had certainly taken their toll on Maedb. She’d switched out her shield long before after a genlock’s mace split hers in one particular desperate push in the old Trade Quarter and she had exchanged her steel gauntlets for leather gloves sewn with mail links. He still remembered how her face lit up when they discovered an armourer’s shop untouched by the looting near the old Proving grounds and several pieces were salvaged to replace the damaged gear of their party.

“Commander, is it true? The ‘spawn are fighting to release two more archdemons?” Nathaniel asked. “I thought the Blight was over. Will another begin so soon?”

“Maker’s breath!” Anders cursed. “Another Blight this soon would raze Ferelden to the ground.”

“Don’t get yer knickers in a bunch,” Oghren began before Maedb cut him off.

“There’s not another old god, much less two, to worry about,” she assured them. “I know the feel of an archdemon on my mind, and this isn’t it. It’s…something different. During the Blight, there was always a shadow in my dreams lurking at the corner of my vision and giving the ‘spawn their dark purpose. These in Kal’Hirol seem disconnected somehow and I know not what their goal is.”

They wound deeper through the stone, following the aqueducts towards the great forge said to be located in the depths of the old city. The frigid water rushed in deep channels in the maintenance tunnels, finally pouring out into enormous slack tanks. They were close to the smelting pit now, according to the faded map Sigrun kept tucked in her belt.

He was covering their rear and was surprised to find their group huddled near one of the mechanical doorways that had become commonplace in the older quarters. He closed on their position silently after Oghren signaled him. Once he closed the distance between them, he felt a pop in his ears and suddenly he could hear the muffled words of his friends. _Ah, a bubble of silence_. Anders had used a few of those illusion spells in the past few days, claiming it was a trick he’d picked up escaping templars in the past. Maedb motioned him forward, and he wedged between her and Sigrun to get a look at what they had found.

There was a large darkspawn, one of the sorts he’d begun to recognize as a hurlock, holding a mage staff and wearing a mail tunic and red tabard. It was the first of the darkspawn he’d seen wear some sort of heraldry, but perhaps it was scavenged from a corpse. But that wasn’t what drew his attention. _It speaks!_ He’d heard Seneschal Varel talk about the darkspawn that had attacked Vigil’s Keep, but this was more disturbing than he’d imagined.

Its attention was directed at a massive steel golem holding another darkspawn up in the air. The golem was larger than the others they’d found in the ruins of Kal’Hirol and this one glowed a dark red. _The flaming bastard was covered in molten metal!_

“Did the Architect really think he could stop us?” it said to his captive.

 _The Architect?_ Nathaniel had never heard that name before. And from the looks of his companions, neither had they. He diverted his attention back to the scene before him.

“Perhaps if he hadn’t been too much of a coward to come himself,” the darkspawn continued, “I would have been spared the trouble of sending a message. When you don’t return, he’ll know that the Mother will tear him apart!”

Then he gestured a steel rod at the golem and the construct twisted its gauntlets, tearing the captive darkspawn in two at the waist. The corpse fell to the floor in pieces with a wet, heavy thump. Blood hissed as it sprayed over the golem and the smell of burnt copper filled the room.

“And you there!” it shouted towards where they sheltered in the doorway. “I can feel your presence as surely as you feel mine and you are no darkspawn. Come forward. There is no use in hiding now. I have your scent.”

“So much for hiding,” Anders murmured as he dropped the sound barrier.

“Cheer up, I’m sure he just wants to have some tea,” Sigrun quipped, spinning her hatchets in her hands. “Nothing suspicious about a talking darkspawn. Nope, nothing at all.”

Maedb shouldered her way past Nathaniel. “Perhaps we can at least find out what’s going on.” She confronted the darkspawn and his golem, pausing about fifteen feet away.

“Did the Architect send you as well?” the darkspawn said before Maedb had a chance to speak. “I’ll kill you as I’ve killed all his servants before you. The Mother demands it!” he screamed.

And with an inhuman shriek, the darkspawn leader thrust out his control rod once more. The golem tucked in its limbs and then shot out a ball of fire where Maedb had been standing just momens before.

“I guess tea is out of the question,” Nathaniel said to Sigrun.

“Take out that ‘spawn!” Maedb yelled at them. “He has the control rod.”

Just then, Nathaniel saw her sword burst into flames. “Oh of all the blasted-! Anders!” their commander yelled.

“Yes, Commander,” Anders responded sounding frustrated as he dispelled an incoming attack.

“Forget what I told you before. I need your frost spells,” she admitted as she dodged another fire ball.

“Yes, Commander!!” he said with a salute and a smirk. “Destructive forces of nature! Coming up!”

Moments later, a wall of ice erupted from the floor separating the golem from its master. After that, Nathaniel lost himself in the fight as he scrambled to both avoid his enemy’s spells and launch arrows in his direction. When the fight was done, he stood in a pool of cooled metal that once belonged to the raging golem and dazedly tried to calm his mind. Now that it was over, he was having a hard time determining whether he was short of breath from the shock of the past few days or from the physical exertions of near constant battle. A moment later, he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder and a tingling sensation passed through his body. Suddenly, Nathaniel was standing straighter and felt more alert than he’d had in a long time.

“Don’t worry,” Anders said in his ear. “It’s just a rejuvenation spell.”

Looking back at the mage, he could see the dark circles beneath his eyes and how his skin had grayed during the course of the expedition. “Can you work those on yourself?”

Anders grimaced. “Sometimes. Not reliably enough, it seems. You don’t have much reason to expend this much mana in the Circle, as it turns out, when you spend the bulk of your time in solitary confinement.”

“You must be at the end of your rope if you don’t even have the energy for sarcasm,” Nathaniel pointed out. He forgot what he was going to say next as their passage opened up into a large, multi-story gallery.

Large crates filled with the telltale glow of lyrium ore swung on heavy chains from the ceiling, obviously left from the Kal’Hirol miners who had perished in the invasion many years before. A railing ran around the room, cordoning off a deep smelting pit that plunged several stories. He followed the others to the edge to peer down, confused as to what he saw below.

There were three figures that looked like nothing so much as enormous grubs, the sort he’d find under a rotten log. They had swollen bodies, multiple legs, and engorged breasts lining their underbellies. Occasionally, one would rear up on its tail and wave thick tentacles at another. But worst of all were the faces. Nathaniel could swear they had human faces, not the black and red flesh and glowing eyes he was used to seeing on the darkspawn warriors he’d met so far.

“I’m - I’m afraid to look. Afraid I might recognize one of them,” Sigrun said nervously.

“What do you mean?” Anders asked. “How would you recognize a darkspawn?”

“Those are broodmothers,” Oghren said simply.

“But what are broodmothers?” asked Nathaniel.

“Listen,” Maedb began, keeping her voice low so as to not attract the attention of the creatures below them. “Broodmothers are women, or they were. Once. Human, elf…dwarf. It’s how the darkspawn breed. They raid settlements. They steal away the women down here in the Deep Roads or they break the surface and steal some goose girl from her farm or a ranger from a Dalish clan. They steal the women – and violate them – turn them into ghouls that do nothing but breed.”

“Are you telling me those things down there used to be human?” Nathaniel asked incredulously. “When you said the darkspawn took some of the women, I thought you meant they were just going to be raped.”

All turned on him, anger and disbelief reflected in their eyes. Anders slapped him in the face and said in a low voice, “There’s no such thing as ‘just rape’, Howe. I guess now we know how much you take after your father.”

“Now isn’t the time for this,” Maedb snapped.

“There are no female darkspawn, not really,” Sigrun explained to him. “It isn’t common knowledge on the surface, but all darkspawn are born from ghouls, women who have the taint. Dwarves give rise to genlocks, human women make hurlocks, and Qunari and elves breed the ogres and shrieks.”

Maedb looked over the railing and did a quick scan. “At least one used to be Dalish. I can see the Vallaslin marked clearly on her face. No dwarves, though.” She put a hand on Sigrun’s shoulder.

“So. So those things,” Nathaniel said with a shaky voice, pointing down over the railing. “Those things were women. There are still women missing from Vigil’s Keep from the night of the ambush. And all those farms. Not all the bodies were found. Those are them?” _Merciful Andraste, those things down there were his people._

“We have no way of knowing if they’re those missing women specifically,” Oghren said. “But they’re women stolen from somewhere.”

Nathaniel scrabbled over to the wall and promptly emptied the entire contents of his stomach.

Oghren walked over to where he still kneeled next to the wall retching. “I know how you feel, boy. The Commander and I, we just learned about it last year when we went chasing after my wife Branka. She’d run off into the deep with our whole house and went insane. She forced some of the women…Well, you don’t really need to know the whole story. But I find this helps.” The dwarf held out his ever-present wine skin.

Nathaniel snatched it and squeezed a stream into his mouth to wash out the taste of vomit. He swished it in his mouth and spit it out, then drank seriously. “What is this foul stuff?” he asked once he took time to breath between swallows.

“They call it Dragon Piss,” Oghren said proudly.

When they rejoined the others at the railing, they heard the tail-end of the commander’s orders.

“I can paralyze them, but you’ll need to be quick about it,” Anders offered. “I can only hold them for about twenty seconds at most, but I’ve never tried that spell on more than one at once before. I can’t guarantee all three will stay put for you.”

“It will have to do,” said the commander. “Oghren and I have faced them before, and one broodmother is enough to keep us busy. I don’t want us in range of their tentacles – or worse – their spit.”

“Just drop those crates on them,” Sigrun suggested, pointing at the containers of lyrium suspended by chains over the smelting pit.

Maedb snorted. “I’d rather kill them slowly with a hammer. Do you know how much that lyrium is worth? I’m not dropping that much onto darkspawn. We can use that ore for explosives and potions.”

It took a few minutes to light the pitch. He and Sigrun unslung their bows and prepared a series of arrows while Ogren and Maedb cranked their crossbows and set bolts at the ready. At a signal from the commander, Anders cast a wide spell to paralyze the three broodmothers below. It was weak. Weaker than they had expected, and the darkspawn began to wail in panic and anger. But it was sufficient to hold the creatures – he didn’t want to think of them as women – relatively still for the onslaught. They sent volley after volley of flaming arrows and bolts at the squirming, screaming darkspawn below. He was thankful they’d already ensured the surrounding passageways were clear of enemy troops, because the sounds of their death throes were deafening.

After they were certain the creatures had perished, Sigrun led their party down a stairwell to the bottom of the pit. She crept around their still smoking corpses to check for life, slitting their throats so deep as to sever their spines. Just in case, she’d declared.

In a side chamber, Nathaniel discovered the huddled forms of the missing women of Sigrun’s unit. They were covered in sores and boils, moaning in discomfort.

“Ancestors have mercy!” said Oghren, who had followed him into the room. “They’re already tainted.”

The women turned at his voice and the light reflected eerily from their eyes, giving them a feral look. There were six in total, but one of them slumped unmoving in the corner, the signs of weakness and starvation plain to see. There were corrupted limbs with putrid flesh piled in the center of the room, evidence of how the darkspawn had been feeding their captives. The sights and smells of their cell set Nathaniel to dry heaving once more.

“Anders, see what you can do for the one in the corner. Give her water and whatever hardtack you have left,” the commander strode through the door and among the other five shuffling women, grabbing each by their chins and peering into their eyes. “The blight sickness has already begun.”

A small cry escaped from Sigrun’s lips when she had slipped in behind them.

Maedb reached into one of the pouches at her belt and produced a handful of vials, holding them up for Sigrun to see. “I can’t promise anything. We may be too late. But this is the potion we use in the Joining for the Grey Wardens. Your friends _will_ die of the taint. There’s no changing that. But if they don’t drink this, these women will become ghouls – or worse – broodmothers, and you know what we would need to do. But if they drink this potion - if they survive the Joining - they’ll live out their lives as wardens before they die. They might live another thirty years if they’re lucky.”

“Do it,” Sigrun said without hesitating. “And give me one of those too. If becoming a Grey Warden means I’d be even better at killing darkspawn, I want to take that chance.”

As Maedb was about to hand the woman a vial, she snatched her hand back. “You do understand you’re volunteering for the order. These other women, I don’t expect them to join if they don’t want to. It’s either drink the potion or receive a mercy killing from us. But you – you don’t have the Blight sickness. If you drink this, you’re coming back to the surface with us.”

“I get it, Commander,” Sigrun assured her. “I’ve fought beside you and your other wardens for almost a week now. Orzammar has no other allies in the fight against darkspawn beside the Grey Wardens. You could have just sealed the passage to Kal’Hirol and gone back home, but you didn’t. You followed me into the Deep Roads to rescue my unit, with no assurances we’d make it out alive. Joining the wardens is just another way to help the Legion and the rest of Orzammar. I’ll gladly join, even knowing the risks.”

Nathaniel stood there with his mouth open as he watched the dwarven woman volunteer her life to the wardens. He could understand making the decision if it meant saving the lives of those with the taint, but she had no reason to do that. He suddenly wished he’d been given the choice. Knowing what he knew now, see the true horrors that darkspawn brought to his family’s lands, he knew he would choose this life given a chance.

“Heh, there’s my girl!” Oghren shouted, clapping a hand to Sigrun’s shoulder. “Admit it. You’re joining up to stay close to me.”

“Ugh, get off me,” she said, poking him in the arm with her dagger. “Let me rephrase that Commander. I’ll join you if you can guarantee my room is in the opposite end of the keep from his.”

In the end, they only needed to bury three of the women. They’d found some empty sarcophagi in one of the buildings in Kal’Hirol, and Sigrun felt the stone tombs would suffice. The four surviving legionnaires and Oghren said only a few simple words over their bodies. These women had already had funerals when they joined the Legion, and so all that was left to do was leave them to the Stone’s embrace. As it turned out, Maedb wouldn’t let Sigrun drink the warden potion until she returned to Vigil’s Keep with them, giving her more time to change her mind and mumbling something about having to do the ‘proper ceremony’.

The better part of a week passed before they were able to return to the keep, as they discovered their horses were missing when they climbed back to the surface. Nathaniel hoped they’d do some farmer some good and weren’t in fact lining the bellies of some bandit or darkspawn. The trek back east to the castle was spent in good spirits, thanks to the ever curious and cheerful disposition of Sigrun and the other Legionnaire that decided to join them. Once she’d said her goodbyes to what remained of her unit, Sigrun found every little thing about the surface a joy to experience. He found it hard to imagine never seeing trees before, or even the sky for that matter. The dwarves experienced an hour or two of vertigo before calming down, but once Sigrun saw a flock of ravens soar up from an ironwood tree, she fell to the ground, clutching the grass for fear of falling off into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always wondered why the people in Thedas didn't just carry around the Joining potion as an antidote to Blight sickness. So, here I've decided my warden does as a precaution, and consequently increases the ranks of the wardens.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maedb meets with her council and changes are made.

> “ _I recognize a fighter of darkspawn. It marks you. That's why we Legion of the Dead abandon our lives so we can face them without fear._ ” - _Kardol_

“Look at all this!” Sigrun said, spinning with her arms flung wide. “Isn’t it exciting to come up over a hill like this and see forever? I almost pity the rest of the Legion for missing it. Just think if you’d never stumbled on me in the Deep Roads I never would have seen this view. And look at that over there. Are those ships? I’ve never seen a ship before. What do you think it would feel like to go sailing, do you think?”

They were on a section of the North Road near the keep that followed the coastline closely. Maedb followed the dwarf’s out flung arm to spy a fleet of merchant vessels passing by the mouth of Forlorn Cove as they made for the port of Amaranthine. “That’s just a merchant cog, nothing so special as to get excited,” she said blandly.

Sometimes it seemed that every mile of the road back to the keep had merited a comment from Sigrun and it was beginning to wear on her nerves. Each time they spotted a different type of tree or shrub, their party paused to tell the excitable dwarf its name and if it had any useful properties. When a farmer and his wagon overtook them on the North Road, Maedb jumped at the chance to hire him for the trip back to the keep, if only to shorten their travel to stop Sigrun’s incessant questions. It was convenient, however, for Daedrig, the Legionnaire that had decided to join them, to ride in the bed of the wagon. She was still recovering from her captivity by the darkspawn and it had been difficult for her to keep pace with their party when they’d first emerged from the Deep Roads.

“You know what, Commander? I’d like a chance to see one of those ships up close. Just once from shore, you know? I don’t know if I could actually sail on one though. So far from the Stone’s embrace…” Sigrun trailed off with a shudder.

“I could take you to the docks and show you around one of my family’s ships the next time they’re in port,” Maedb suggested.

“You have ships?” Anders said with surprise. “I thought you were a soldier, not a sailor.”

“Of course I have ships. I learned to sail before I could sit a horse,” Maedb explained. “My mother was a sailor before she married my father and made sure both her children would be raised on the decks of a ship. Plus the Couslands always maintained a few ships for trade and politics as the teryns of Highever.”

“A sailor?” Nathaniel said with a snort. “Eleanor Cousland destroyed a dozen ships in the Battle of Denerim Harbor. I wouldn’t use the term sailor exactly. Pirate or raider would be more accurate.”

 Maedb turned and confronted Nathaniel in a low voice. “Who are you to speak of raiders? Tell me. Whose soldiers attacked my family’s estate under the cover of friendship? Why did they kill my little nephew in his bed? You speak of my mother as a raider but it was she who stood against Howe soldiers as they burned and murdered our family and servants,” she said heatedly. “I was determined to set aside my vengeance and work with you against the darkspawn, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to talk about my mother.” With the atmosphere now turned dark, the others avoided conversation with her for the next few miles.

She had been a fool to let her guard down around the son of Rendon Howe. Down in the Deep Roads, it was easy to think of Nathaniel as just another soldier. How could she have been so daft as to think she had grown past those feelings of resentment? She would need to be more careful. Ever since the Blight, her outbursts had become more frequent, but now, with the darkspawn threat, Maedb couldn’t afford to let her bitterness affect her ability to command.

If she were honest with herself, though, what made her more angry was that it had been awhile since she had even thought of her mother. That in itself was enough to set her temper on edge. How long since she had thought of her parents? Of Highever? Of that night? She shook the dark thoughts from her head and chose to remember her mother as she’d always seen her when she w as a girl.

Mother was the queen of the high seas, the Seawolf sung with praise by all the minstrels. Bare feet on deck, black hair pulled back from her face in braids and tied with a leather thong. Aboard ship, Eleanor Cousland always wore trousers, cropped short and with holes at the knee. She wore loose linens stained with salt and bleached by the sun, but no one would see a beggar when they looked at mother. She wore the wealth of the trade winds around her neck in long ropes of pearls and emeralds set in gold dangled from her ears. Maedb could see her now, barking orders at her crew as they scrambled on deck and spidered their way up the mast. She remembered the boatswain who taught her to tie her first knots. She remembered the galley that always reeked of grouper and lemons. As much as Maedb enjoyed her training with her father’s infantry, it was the summers she spent on her mother’s ships she loved and missed so dearly.

As they approached Vigil’s Keep, the deafening sounds of picks and pulleys and teeming workers brought her out of her reverie. Maedb was elated to see that the Glavonak brothers had found so many willing workers to help repair the fortifications. From the looks of things, most were the refugees she’d had Sergeant Maverlies round up from outside the city gates but there were a few new faces since Maedb had left the keep two weeks ago.

“Commander!” Dworkin said, trotting up to greet them as they passed through the new gate. “We received word from the scouts. With your leave, I’ll dispatch workers to collect the crates of lyrium as soon as possible.”

“Dworkin Glavonak,” Maedb sketched a hasty nod towards the dwarven inventor. “This is Sigrun and Daedrig.”

“From the Legion of the Dead, of course. My brother Voldrik and I welcome you to Vigil’s Keep. Our families will be happy to have more dwarves around.” He sketched them both a hasty bow before turning back to his brother who was deep in conversation with a team of masons.

Maedb wondered how much the Glavonaks would get along with the two Legionnaires, as the surface was a sight different from Dust Town. Though perhaps since both were considered Casteless by Orzammar, they would find more in common than not.  She hoped Vigil’s Keep was ready for them.

A stable lass came to meet the farmer who had given them a ride on his wagon and guided him towards the larder to unload his goods. Two footmen she didn’t recognize emerged in the bailey to help with their gear and one offered a wet cloth to them to wipe their faces. All Seneschal Varel’s doing, she was sure. As they stood near the newly mended gate, a derrick swung overhead, lowering a block of granite into place where the stonemason Voldrik was directing repairs. He relayed orders while journeymen masons set to mortaring the joints. Several other blocks sat ready on pallets, evidence of the amount of progress made in the fortnight they were gone. Maedb was satisfied with the speed Voldrik was taking in construction, but she hoped it wasn’t at the expense of quality.

Turning to follow the footmen into the great hall, Maedb saw that Nathaniel had gone ahead and met with Garevel on the front steps where the captain and three guards seemed to be in heated discussion with an older man.

“…and don’t you look down on me, lad. I was killing Orlesians with Queen Moira before your mother ever lifted her skirts,” the man said, shaking his walking stick at the soldiers. “I know an invasion when I see one, and let me tell you, these darkspawn mean to kill us all! Two in three farms sit empty in Amaranthine. No one’s seen my grandniece in two weeks. And every time I turn around, I’ve lost another cow to a sinkhole caused by flamin’ darkspawn.”

“Listen, old man,” Garevel began, “We don’t have time to coddle you and listen to your tales of Maric’s rebellion.”

“Maric’s rebellion?” The old man spat on the flagstones, narrowly missing the captain’s boots. “You mean Queen Moira’s rebellion. That boy’d be nothing without his lady mother. If she were alive today, she wouldn’t let Ferelden get to this state and that grandson of hers is doing no better. By Andraste’s tits, man, let me do something-”

“Best leave Andraste’s tits to the Maker, grandfather,” said Maedb shortly as she rescued Garevel and the guardsmen from his ravings. She set a hand on his shoulder and stooped to look him square in the face. “I’m the commander here. What is it you’d like us to let you do?”

Garevel stepped forward with a sharp salute. “Beg pardon, Commander. He says he wants to join the Grey Wardens.” The two guards at his heels snickered at that.

“Commander, if I may,” Nathaniel interrupted. “This is Dolan Longstaff. He was bannerman to Arl Byron. After the rebellion, my father gave him a farm for his service.”

“Retired soldier, eh?” She looked at the old man again with new eyes. “I’ll hear you out, but not right now. Report to the kitchens for a meal and I’ll send a runner for you once I’m ready.”

Half a day later Maedb strode into an office off to the side of the great hall. Here she found her wardens waiting for her plus the three she was beginning to think of as her council. The chamber still suffered the damages of the darkspawn attack from almost a month ago. The table didn’t match the various chairs and gone were the tapestries that once hung from its walls. A hastily assembled rack held an assortment of loosely bound books and a few brittle scrolls, a sad testament to what had once been a sizable library brought to the keep by the Orlesian wardens. It depressed Maedb all the more to think of the lore that was now lost to the fire and destruction of that night.

Seneschal Varel, quickly proving to be indispensable to Maedb, clasped her right arm the moment she entered. “Commander Cousland, I was glad to hear of your safe return. I prayed to the Maker you would.”

She tightened her grip on his wrist in return before crossing the room to where Nathaniel Howe stood by a crude map on the wall talking with a shorter woman. Mistress Woolsey, distinguished by being the only other woman in the room, wore her steel grey hair coiled in braids on the back of her neck, a common style from the Anderfels. Woolsey was her treasurer, sent from Weisshaupt by the First Warden to help with administration and when Maedb saw her, she groaned inwardly. She wished, not for the first time, that Eloise Woolsey were a fellow warden instead of a high ranking clerk.

Nathaniel turned at her approach. “Commander, I was just reviewing the trade routes with Mistress Woolsey. There may be some alternatives other than Pilgrim’s Path.”

“I see.” She felt her mouth thin in disapproval. _That damn woman and her trade routes._ “We’ll discuss this after the meeting.”

“As you wish, Commander,” Woolsey said with a barely deferential tone before going to her chair.

Maedb moved to stand at the head of the table and said, “Captain Garevel, how fared the arling in our absence?”

The captain of the keep’s guards grimaced from his seat at the end. “Sadly, two more farmsteads fell while you were in the Deep Roads and there have been sightings of darkspawn activity outside the city at night.”

 He wore his wavy dark blond hair pulled back into a warrior’s club and his tanned skin stood out in sharp contrast with his deeply set light blue eyes. Garevel’s armor was ceremonial, quite different from what she’d found him wearing the night of the ambush, with enough ornamentation to make an Orlesian blush. The breastplate was enameled in blue with a trio of griffons picked out in gold flake. A heavy cloak in silk brocade fell from his shoulders emblazoned with the flame of Andraste on a white shield. _Great, a templar sympathizer._ She knew the captain had been handpicked in Weisshaupt for this assignment much like Woolsey, but it hadn’t made sense to her why they would send a non-initiate. Seeing his heraldry, Maedb understood it was just politics: a Chantry mole with financial backing. She hoped his loyalty to the templars wouldn’t jeopardize her efforts in the arling.

“I fear the patrols are spread too thin,” Garevel continued. “Before much longer, we’ll need to choose between defending the farms or the city.”

“Acknowledged,” Maedb said as she finally seated herself in the chair. The cherry wood was carved to resemble the forest bear of the Howe family. The high back resembled nothing so much as the rearing form of a she-bear, her jaws opened wide and menacing over the seat with sharp claws stretched outward. The armrests were so old the wood had worn itself smooth and dark with time. As she adjusted the cushion, she was keenly aware of Nathaniel’s eyes on her enthroned in the family seat. “You’re saying you plan to cut patrols instead of filling the barracks then.”

“Only until we receive more reinforcements from Orlais,” said Garevel. Woolsey and Varel nodded in agreement. “I suggest we divert the troops to the city for the time being.”

“We can’t just leave the farmers to fend for themselves,” Nathaniel complained.

At a small flick of her finger, Oghren slipped from the room and returned with Dolan Longstaff. The old man didn’t seem uncomfortable under their scrutiny as he shifted his weight and leaned on his staff.

“Tell me, Dolan, what do you and your neighbors think of the wardens who have been patrolling the arling the past few months?” she asked him.

“Andraste’s flame take the lot of them,” he proclaimed. “No offense to you, Commander, but I didn’t lose a wife and two brothers in the rebellion driving the enemy from our lands only to invite them back in. And what good were they? The lot of them killed or missing in a single night. No, we don’t care for more Orlesian wardens in Amaranthine.”

“But you told the captain you wanted to join the wardens,” she pointed out

“Well, yes,” Longstaff said, using the staff to scratch behind one ear. “You need Fereldan Grey Wardens. You need the people of Amaranthine to protect what’s theirs.”

With a nod towards the door, Oghren took the old soldier from the room. When he returned, Maedb leaned back in the chair, pointed at Garevel, and said, “He’s right. We need Fereldans in the wardens and we’re going to start with him.”

“You can’t be serious, Commander. That man is older than I am and I’m long past the age of picking up a sword,” Seneschal Varel said.

“All the better then. It’s not like he’ll be worried about living a long life,” offered Oghren.

 “Longstaff may not be of much use on the battlefield anymore but you know what he can do? If he were a Grey Warden, he could light a signal fire when he senses darkspawn,” she explained. “He could work on a farm and ring a warning bell summoning everyone back from the fields. Half these farms could be saved with a little early warning and any grandmother worth her salt can raise alarm when she feels the taint creep near a farmhouse.”

“Weisshaupt will never agree to this,” Mistress Woolsey said. “And I don’t know what the First Warden will say when he hears you took that dwarven woman on the spot in the Deep Roads instead of bringing her back here for the ceremony.”

“I don’t know about Weisshaupt, but I do know one thing,” Maedb said as she tapped her index finger on the table in front of her. “I have darkspawn knocking on my door and one old man willing to die if it protects his people. I’m opening the Joining to everyone.”

“Commander, if I may,” Seneschal Varel began. “The ceremony for the Joining is supposed to be a secret for the Grey Wardens.”

“I’m with the commander on this,” Anders volunteered. “Since she assigned me to the infirmary, I’ve seen so many cases of Blight sickness among the refugees – four more cases just this afternoon even. Since the Battle of Denerim, the darkspawn troops have escaped all over Fereldan and infecting the people along the way. If I had known before what I know now, I could have saved some of those patients Maker willing.”

Oghren stepped to Maedb’s side and said, “Even the Legion of the Dead takes all comers.”

“This is not the Legion of the Dead,” Garevel said vehemently.

“I was there at Fort Drakon with the commander here and King Alistair,” Oghren continued. “I would have given anything to have a few more wardens fight on our side. If I had known there was nothing more to it than drinking out o’ some fancy cup, to make sure we could kill the archdemon, I would have signed my name to the list then. I say we take ‘em. All of them that wants it.”

She set her hand on Oghren’s shoulder to calm him and said, “They don’t have to be soldiers. They don’t have to live in the barracks. But we’ll offer the concoction to all who have the Blight sickness and any who want to join the fight against the darkspawn just like old Dolan.”

Seneschal Varel turned to Nathaniel. “Nate, you were born here. What do you think the Amaranthine people would have to say about this?”

“They could die of the Joining, to be sure. But death is just as likely at the hands of the darkspawn if we abandon the farms,” Nathaniel mused. “I say we give them the choice. After what I’ve learned of the Grey Wardens, if I’d truly been given the choice, I would have taken the potion of my own will.”

Maedb met his eyes as he said the last bit. She saw the unspoken message there and gave him a nod in thanks. Despite their brief spat on the road back to the keep, she felt she’d made a lot of progress with him since their trek through Kal’Hirol.

Garevel and Woolsey pitched a few more complaints her way regarding the Joining ceremony, but ultimately they couldn’t countermand her orders. The rest of the meeting went smoothly and that very evening both Dolan and Sigrun drank the potion to become Grey Wardens. Already there were whispers running through the keep that she was recruiting more for the order and it wasn’t unheard of to see three or four guardsmen in cautious conversation about it and more than a few of the servants approached Varel about the rumors in the following days. Mostly it was the folk who Sergeant Maverlies had rounded up from the refugee camp outside the city – men and women who had already lost homes or families to either Loghain’s civil war or to the armies of the Blight. Once Dolan Longstaff recovered, Maedb often saw him in the kitchen bailey surrounded by the serving staff telling the folks of the keep about his ordeal.

The next week at Vigil’s Keep passed in a hectic blur as the folk at the castle repaired the destroyed barracks in anticipation of an influx of recruits. Varel veritably bristled in delight at the challenge of accommodating so many people and even hired on an assistant to help with the details. Putting out word that the Grey Wardens were recruiting brought in a lot more refugees than when Maverlies rounded up the folk at the city gates.

War was really a terrific motivator for military recruitment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never understood why the Grey Wardens were so picky about recruitment. Even in the beginning of Awakening, Mhairi complains about the Warden wanting to recruit Oghren as if there hadn't just been a mass slaughter of wardens that very day. Beggars can't be choosers. So this chapter is really about addressing that.
> 
> Edit: Also, I should mention that I felt free to add my own backstories to secondary characters like Woolsey and Garevel. I hope it doesn't clash too much with game canon for you.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An exercise in trust.

> “ _Beware the Children. They are abominations, even among darkspawn_ _” - Jukka_

Nathaniel watched as Maedb came briskly forward when he and his party rode into the inner bailey through the newly finished gates Voldrik had installed. But when her eyes fell on the strange shape covered by raw, bloody cloth slung over the withers of their pack mule, she stopped short. She seemed confused by the form that confronted her when the burlap was drawn back exposing a pale, swollen, segmented body with spindly legs in all a little larger than a mountain sheep.

“Nate, what’s that?” she demanded. “Where is the wolf?”

“’Weren’t no wolf, ser,” offered the new recruit Gibbons who held the mule’s lead rope. The boy was all arms and legs and ears and barely knew how to salute.

Nathaniel held up a hand to still the lad’s tongue before it ran ahead of him. “There wasn’t any wolf,” he said with apprehension. “I wish there were. I wish it had been a pack of wolves. There was only this, this, _thing._ I think it’s a new form of darkspawn.”

“I’ve never seen the like,” Maedb said quietly as she gingerly pulled the shroud back over the corpse. “What did Lady Morag say when you arrived?”

“Just that they’d found no trace of bodies – no bones, no flesh, only blood. We lost one of our scouts on the third night, Alaric from the city watch, and it was Gibbons here who found the trail,” he said, nodding in the recruit’s direction.

Gibbons straightened up at that, futilely trying to tame his cowlick while grinning foolishly at the commander. “Weren’t nothing,” he mumbled. “I stepped in a hole.”

“These things were tunneling, bursting through the ground and grabbing men unawares,” Nathaniel explained. “We dug out one of the openings and followed it down. It came out near Kal’Hirol, commander. The cave was filled with what you see here: giant worms with bloody, gaping mouths.”

“How did we miss these critters in the Deep Roads before?” Maedb asked.

“I could feel them,” Nathaniel added with a shudder. “They’re darkspawn alright, or near enough. It’s one thing to feel them wriggling in your mind while they take the shape of men, but these…I can’t even pretend these are men.”

“That just makes them easier to kill in my opinion,” Gibbons said with a crack in his voice.

 “Alright. Gibbons? Deliver this thing to Anders in the infirmary and tell him I’ll meet with him there. I don’t think I need to tell you to keep your mouth shut.” Once he left, she continued on with her voice pitched low, “Did you see that Nate? That thing had a face. _A face!_ I need you to take the dwarves back down there and clear these things out.”

“They’re too fast commander. Gibbons and I were lucky.”

“Have Garevel lend you some guardsmen then. And if anyone asks, you’re off to loot Kal’Hirol,” she said.

It took less than a week to trek back to the darkspawn tunnels and destroy those creatures. Many lay dormant in silken cocoons and they made quick work of them. It was the older ones, the ones with legs and rows of teeth and their almost-faces that presented the biggest challenge. Luckily, Daedrig was quite adept at setting traps so after a time it reminded Nathaniel of following game trails in the Wending Wood to trap animals.

Back in the main cavern, Sigrun had poked at one of the sacks with a short-hafted spear and mused that it was like the darkspawn had been born without direction-unshaped. She had said it wasn’t unheard of for dwarven children to occasionally be born without limbs or have some other defect and perhaps this was something similar, the malformed children of a broodmother. He shuddered just thinking about it.

As disgusting as that job was, he was grateful for the companionship of the dwarves who always seemed to lighten the mood. Sigrun and Daedrig bickered with Oghren near constantly, but it never seemed to put him off his attempts to get one of the women alone for an evening. That is, until they returned to Vigil’s Keep to find Oghren’s wife Felsi waiting for him with a baby strapped to her chest.

“Why you stonecursed nug-humper!” Daedrig said slamming Oghren into one of the weapons racks in the armory.  She was taller than Oghren by half a hand and seemed quicker on her feet. “The pair of you can breed but you went and threw that away with the Grey Warden potion?”

“Breedin’ ain’t being a father,” Oghren growled as he pushed her back. “And as sure as Bermot’s beard is black, I’m not the husband type either.”

“The least you could have done was bring Felsi back to Orzammar,” Daedrig insisted. “Your boy could have grown up in the warrior caste instead of living out his life as a Casteless surfacer.”

“I still don’t get why being casteless is a big deal,” Nathaniel said to Sigrun in hushed tones while the other two quarreled. “Peasants become knights and nobles all the time.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Being Casteless isn’t just being poor, Nate. We don’t even have a name in the Shaperate. Some choose to go to the surface, but that’s turning your back on the Paragons and the Ancestors.”

“But you came to the surface,” Nate pointed out.

“For the love of nugs and idiot children,” Sigrun said impatiently. “Yes, I came to the surface. But I came so I could kill darkspawn. That’s not turning my back on the Stone. It honors our ancestors because I’m helping to preserve our culture by killing Orzammar’s enemy.”

“It’s no use explaining to either one of them, Sigrun,” Daedrig complained. “Oghren here is probably going to let his son grow up an Andrastian.”

“The Casteless have four options in life, Nathaniel,” explained Oghren, relieved to have an excuse to turn away from Daedrig’s fury. “Beg in Dust Town, join the Legion of the Dead, die, or go to the surface. I’ll give you one guess which one is the least likely.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Sigrun said. “You were warrior caste and married to a Paragon, so I wouldn’t expect you to know but…you could also join the Carta or try what Daedrig did and become a noble hunter.”

“Oh, you mean a noble hunter like Bhelen’s mistress? Now there’s a pretty one. She has great…teeth. Heh heh heh.” Oghren held his hands in front of him and cupped them towards his chest making bouncing motions.

“Oghren, Rica is the mother to Bhelen’s heir,” Sigrun said with exasperation. “Don’t listen to him Nate. Rica is the mother of Orzammar’s future king. Her sister Natia won the Proving and joined the Wardens, even though she started as a common duster working as a mercenary. Both were elevated and now the Shaperate has recorded their names.”

“I haven’t met Natia. Is she at the Warden outpost in Denerim?” Nathaniel asked.

“No. She died at Ostagar with the other Grey Wardens,” Daedrig chimed in, looking sad for a moment. “I would have liked to have met her. Her sister Rica talked about her all the time.”

“Blasted Loghain,” Oghren said as he began tossing a weighted hammer back and forth between his hands. “You Fereldans may have thought he was a hero once upon a time but no dwarf would have turned tail at Ostagar and run from a darkspawn army. Even Orzammar knew he was a coward and a traitor. That really was a sweet sight when the Warden-Commander chopped off his head.”

“The commander killed Loghain?” Nathaniel’s hands stilled as he sorted through the rack of flasks. He had just assumed it had been a royal headsman or maybe King Alistair.

“Oh you should have seen it! Right there in hall of the palace. First, she defeated him in single combat when he refused to step down as Regent. Then she took his head clean off right there in front of all your nobles gathered for the Landsmeet. His bitch of-I mean-the queen-Anora was splattered with his blood. Heh heh.”

Nathaniel stilled his hands as he pictured Maedb Cousland executing Loghain, just as she had killed his father Rendon and so many others in the rebellion. He bent back to his work stowing all the salvageable gear they’d picked up and tried not to dwell on the fact he was working with his father’s killer. His mind wandered back over their conversation since they’d returned to the keep and his thoughts stumbled on something.

“Noble hunter…Wait, you were a concubine?” Nathaniel asked Daedrig in shock. He’d heard of the practice, of course, that the dwarven birth rate was so low that lords and ladies would take mates from the lower castes in the hopes of reviving the bloodline. He originally thought it strange – taking a lover strictly to produce children. But over time he came to think of it no differently than Fereldan’s nobility marrying for lands or title.

He looked over the dwarven woman with a keener eye. Aside from her Casteless mark on her cheek, her face was free of markings unlike the other Legionnaires he’d met. She wore her black hair pulled back in braids coiled at the base of her neck, but other than a blemish free countenance and longer hair than the normal soldier, Nathaniel couldn’t really envision her as some lord’s mistress. But maybe he just couldn’t see past the mail hauberk, studded leather boots, and double war axes. She’d had more kills than he did down in those darkspawn caves.

“What, have you never met a concubine before?” Daedrig asked.

“Not one like you.”

“I tried for seven years to conceive before I gave up and joined the Legion. It’s a sight better than accompanying some wine sot from the Diamond Quarter, though the food isn’t much to brag about. Want me to dance for you? Or maybe recite poetry for m’lord?” Daedrig said with a mock bow. She pulled a morning star from the rack and proceeded to sing its praises while stroking its haft.

Sigrun and Oghren began calling out suggestions to Daedrig while he nearly cried from laughter when two guardsmen stormed into the armory.

“Nathaniel Howe, you’re coming with us,” one of the guardsmen announced grimly.

“What? Where?” He glanced over at the three dwarves who looked as stunned as he felt.

“Warden-Commander Cousland said to take you to the dungeon,” was the curt reply from the taller of the two.

“I don’t understand.” Nathaniel shook his head in confusion. “We just got back from the Deep Roads.”

“Come along afore we have to carry you there.”                  

He seethed while they marched him across the bailey to the dungeon. He’d been freed from there just weeks before. _Why was she was going to lock him up again?_ Nathaniel reflected back on their mission to eradicate that darkspawn nest, trying to recall anything he might have done to anger the commander. He’d followed all her orders and he felt since she’d picked him to spearhead this excursion to clear them out that perhaps she’d be grateful for his assistance.

When they reached the gaoler’s office, he saw her stooped over some paperwork on a desk with Seneschal Varel at her side. She looked up and met his eyes, looking confused and then she looked down at his fisted hands.

“Nathaniel? Is everything alright?”

“Warden-Commander, Ser. I request to know why you are confining me to the dungeons once more. I gave you my word and I acquitted myself rather well in the Deep Roads. Have I offended in some way?”

The confusion left her face immediately. “Oh no! No no. That’s not what this is. I actually have a prisoner that I wanted to ask you about, seeing as these were the lands of your family. I wanted you here for _advice._ ”

“Advice? You want my counsel?” Nathaniel asked with astonishment.

“Of course! Why would I lock you up again? Nevermind, come over here and look at these testimonies with me,” said the commander as she waved him over to the desk.

The guards had left Nathaniel’s side so he walked over to Varel and the commander in a daze. _Advice?_ The paperwork on the desk seemed to detail an ambush and murder of one of the Amaranthine nobles.

“Ser Temmerly stands accused?” His eyes skimmed over the rest of the pages. “Why do you need me? It seems pretty clear that he’s guilty and he’s offered no defense. I would hang him.”

“That was my conclusion, too, Commander,” Varel reminded her. “But I don’t think we can execute him without definitive proof.

“Yes, yes, Varel. I agree with you both that he is guilty. But Ser Tamra hinted at a brewing conspiracy in Amaranthine spearheaded by Rendon’s supporters. No offense, Nathaniel. So if she was killed to prevent giving me the information on the conspirators, I want to know who they are and what they’re planning. Ser Temmerly might be our best shot to root them out.”

Nathaniel mulled it over for a few moments while the seneschal and commander muttered about the useless guardsmen they’d set to the task a month ago.

“I can’t have the arling in an upheaval, not with so many darkspawn still topside. It’s too dangerous for my people,” Maedb was saying.

_My people. She said my people._

“Commander, what you need is someone on the inside,” Nathaniel suggested. “ Someone Temmerly will trust. Well, someone he can trust hates you as much as he does.”

Her eyes met his. “Warden Howe, you know what you’re asking of me.”

“Make it look good, Commander.”

Afterwards, he’d hoped her fists hurt as much as his face did. The guards dragged him screaming curses and threats at the commander down to the cells. As soon as the guards changed shift, leaving them alone for the evening for a few minutes, it wasn’t long before Temmerly laid his whole plan out for Nathaniel. Apparently, the rebel nobles of Amaranthine had been hoping to lure the son of Rendon Howe to their cause. They’d trusted he would honor the promises of lands and favors his father had committed to them during the Blight.

Nathaniel was only too happy to make false pledges and quickly learned which estate the conspirators were using for their clandestine meetings. He agreed with Maedb and didn’t want to see the small folk of Amaranthine suffer because a few nobles were hungry for power. He’d do what he could to infiltrate their group. Besides, Ser Temmerly the Ox was renowned as a bully in Amaranthine and used to pick on his younger brother Thomas something awful. It was the least he could do in his brother’s memory.

When the Warden-Commander took a scouting party to the estate to break up the group of conspirators, he’d been upset he wasn’t brought along. He’d been ordered to review trade contracts with Mistress Woolsey instead. Maedb came back the next day with Oghren, Sigrun, and that detestable mage Anders. He waited outside her office for forty-five minutes before Varel let him in, shutting the door on his way out and leaving them alone in the office.

“Warden-Commander, Ser. I trust the mission was a success.” It was all he could do to speak through his gritted teeth. She never would have found their hideout if it hadn’t been for him!

“Yes it was, Warden Howe. Thanks to you and of course to the late Ser Tamra, we’ve put an end to their dealings. Your information was invaluable.” She gestured for him to sit, but he stubbornly refused and kept standing at alert.

“Commander, Ser. I wish to know why you did not take me with you.” _After all he did to get her the information,_ he thought _. I took a beating for her._

“Warden, I don’t have to explain myself to you.” She stood, splaying her hands on her desk and leaning forward with a glint in her eye. “But I will. I left you behind because you’re Nathaniel Howe.”

“I gave you my _word._ What else do I have to do to earn your trust? I watched your back in the Deep Roads. I rooted out nobility loyal to _my family_ to help you and the Wardens. What else would you have of me?” He was furious. He’d risked his life numerous times already for the Wardens and for this woman.

“I left you behind because you’re Nathaniel Howe. To many of the people in the arling, you are still the heir to Amaranthine. You are still the son of their liege lord. If something happens to me, who do you think they’ll look to? Do you think the people will accept _another_ stranger in their lands? Or would they stay united if you took leadership of the Grey? Tell me, Nathaniel. When I die, who will the arling flock to for leadership?” She snorted. “Not Anders. They’d never accept a mage. And certainly not a dwarf like Oghren or Sigrun. You know how most Fereldens feel about dwarves. I have no other veteran wardens I can trust, Nathaniel. I needed you here in case things went south.”

“You left me behind to keep me safe?” She continued to surprise him at every turn.

“No, I left you behind to manage things in the arling in my absence. And seeing how the keep was still standing, I didn’t choose wrong. Satisfied?” She sat back down and dipped a quill in ink, ready to sign off on one of numerous requests awaiting her signature on the desk.

“I-” He took a couple of deep breaths and reflected on the past few weeks. Leading troops through Deep Roads, meeting with the city guard captain, reviewing accounts with Mistress Woolsey in her absence. These assignments he had thought were punishment were really grooming him for command. That was something he’d never experienced when he served as squire under Ser Rodolphe.

“Oh, and Nathaniel? Beginning tomorrow, I’m promoting you and Anders to Senior Wardens. I’m entrusting you both to command small units of the new ensigns from now on and not just our scouting parties. I’ll make the announcement at second bell in the bailey, so don’t be late. You’re dismissed


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinking reveals some truths.

>   _The Grey Wardens hold a lonely vigil, enduring lives of hardship and sacrifice to protect the world from an evil than can never truly be conquered. Few would volunteer for this: the suffering, isolation, and promise of a violent death. But the path of a Warden is also one of valor, and those who give themselves to the cause are rewarded with the knowledge that they have become something more than they were._

“Commander, if I may,” Eloise Woolsey said, catching her on her way back from arm’s practice one day. The dratted woman had the accounts with her again. “I’m glad your recruiting efforts have been fruitful, but I fear I must warn you that our grain stores will be empty by winter at this rate. The situation on Pilgrim’s Path cannot be ignored any longer.”

Maedb just sniffed at her. “Pilgrim’s Path is a kingsroad.”

“Yes Commander, but it is in Amaranthine. Queen Anora replied to your request saying, ahem, _clean up your own mess.”_

“Have that letter on my desk within the hour; I have a few choice words for Alistair about his wife.” Not that it would make a difference. Alistair seemed to let Anora make many of the decisions for Fereldan, which was normally a good thing in Maedb’s opinion as the queen had more experience with statecraft. But the fact that the royal seat couldn’t even send a company of troops down a kingsroad for patrol was worrisome. Now that she gave it some thought, she might as well include the nagging woman with her when she met with the traders this evening. It might make her stop harassing her about the trade route. “Actually, I’ll be riding out for the city this afternoon to meet with some merchants, Eloise, and you may attend.  If the king won’t take care of this issue, we’ll need to make adjustments.”

“Oh? Will you be meeting with the caravan masters again? Will you be providing them with an escort going forward?” Mistress Woolsey asked.

“I mean, that’s an option, surely, but I have a few other paths to try first. If you could, find Warden Howe and request he join us. Growing up in Amaranthine, he may have some insights.”

Just past midday, Maedb walked down to the stable yard in her best uniform, gold sash over white brocade gambeson. The sigil on her breast was a griffon embroidered in gold thread on a blue field with a grey chevron and black watchtower – the new heraldry for the commander of Vigil’s Keep.

The three of them left out at a brisk trot on the main road, occasionally overtaking a heavily laden cart on the way to the city. From this vantage point, they could see a few deep sea fishing boats waddle their way back into the harbor, their holds heavy with the morning’s catch. The City of Amaranthine had come a long way from the simple fishing village it was before the occupation. The skeletal remains of temporary docks remained on the west side of the natural bay. A more permanent pier made up of solid blocks of granite quarried from the Knotwood Hills lined the harbor to the south and east. Maedb was happy to see several trading vessels tied up and more cogs on the horizon bobbed in the Waking Sea.

After a brief stop at the guard barracks, she led them directly to the docks. A couple of cabin boys trotted out of the alley behind the Flaming Lips and crashed into Mistress Woolsey, eliciting a shriek of disgust. It was all Maedb could do not to tap her foot impatiently while she waited for the older woman to finish adjusting her skirts.

“Beg pardon Commander, but you did say we were meeting with the merchant’s guild,” Woolsey fairly shook with revulsion as she wiped her gloves on her cloak.

“Eloise, trust me. The wharfs are where the money is made in Amaranthine. You did say you needed to boost the accounts.” Maedb shot an amused grin at Nathaniel as she pretended to pause in front of a particularly disreputable brothel named Old Blind Bob. Once she was certain she’d thoroughly scandalized her treasurer, she marched on down the pier until finding the Swollen Purse. This inn had a fresh coat of paint, solid shutters, and a more-subtle-than-most sign hanging over the door.

Ducking beneath the lintel, they found themselves in a brightly lit common room with cheery fires built in hearths at either end of the room. Trestle tables lined the walls but they were only half filled this time of day. Serving maids hustled to and from the kitchens with laden platters while the bartender cleaned her taps. A trio of sailors from the corner raised their mugs at them as they came through the door, inviting them over, but she just saluted in return before approaching the innkeeper. He greeted them nervously, wondering over a visit from the Grey Wardens, before directing them to one of the private tables in the corner. As soon as they approached, a tall woman with straw-colored hair cropped short left the table and greeted them.

“Maedb? It must be you. You look more like your Rivaini grandmother every time I see you,” said the woman as she gripped her wrist.

“Captain Mac Eanraig?”

“Please we’re cousins, sort of, or maybe an aunt. Call me Brigid.” Captain Brigid Mac Eanraig, youngest sister to Maedb’s grandfather Bann Fearchar Mac Eanraig stood with shoulders squared and booted feet splayed as if she were atop deck. Her deep red coat sported a double row of brass buttons and had gold tassels on the shoulders.

Brigid led them to the table and said, “This is my boatswain Owain, the Rivaini woman is Captain Isabela of the Siren’s Call, and the fellow on the end is Captain Shiuhn of the Merman’s Revenge.”

“This is Eloise Woolsey, my chief treasurer, and Warden Nathaniel Howe,” Maedb said trying not to flinch as she introduced Nate. _Dammit._ It had slipped her mind that she’d be introducing her mother’s aunt to the son of Rendon Howe. Fortunately, aside from the captain tightening her mouth a bit at the introduction, she didn’t notice any other reaction.

Eloise leaned in close and whispered in Maedb’s ear, “Merchants? These are pirates.” She snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of her teeth when Maedb dug the heel of her boot into her shoe.

Captain Isabela leaned over the table to grasp her hand in greeting. “Oh ho, it’s the Hero of Ferelden. You’ve certainly risen in the world since we last met.” As captivating as always, Isabela wore her bone-white shirt tightly bound at the waist with a blue coreslet and opened at the neck displaying a heavy gold torque against her deep brown skin. Gold coins dangled from her ears and ropes of pearls wrapped her wrists and hung around her neck to plunge between her breasts. She caught Maedb’s admiring gaze and gave her a cheeky smile.

“Surely you didn’t expect me to break up press gangs for the rest of my military career did you?” Maedb quipped as they arranged themselves around the table.

Nate and Eloise watched intently, occasionally venturing a comment or two, while Maedb fell into easy camaraderie with her cousin and the other sailors. She felt calm in a way she hadn’t felt since before the death of her parents and she was reminded of the summers her mother had taken her out on the family’s fleet. At first, the conversation tended to the more outlandish seafaring tales you might hear from any salty dog with an occasional bawdy recollection from Isabela.

Captain Shiuhn, the dwarven captain from the Wounded Coast, offered a share of his scallops with Nathaniel, whom he had met in Starkhaven a few years ago. The two men quickly began discussing the latest events in the Free Marches.

The ale tasted bitter, at least to Maedb’s palette, but certainly better than any of the swill they would be able to find at the other pubs lining the docks of Amaranthine. It made the meal pass more swiftly for their group, and eventually the other tables began to fill with the evening’s crowd of sailors in to port for the night. Once the din rose to a deafening level, Captain Brigid ordered a jug of rum for their table and they turned to the true business of the evening.

“Courtesies aside, we all know the situation at hand. Supplies are dwindling, costs are rising, and no merchant in his right mind is taking a caravan to Denerim any time soon,” Maedb said as she laid bare their lamentable situation.

“My dear, isn’t it a bit too early to show your hand?” Brigid asked.

“Not at all. As Mistress Woolsey has been quick to point out at every opportunity, our granary will be empty by winter,” she said. A sharp jab in her thigh informed her that Eloise both carried a knife and was most unsatisfied with her bluntness.

“So you’re interested in a trade contract for food stuffs?” asked Owain. The boatswain wore a pearl in one ear, but otherwise he was unadorned. “There is no profit in that for us.”

“There isn’t. That’s why I’m not proposing a contract, I’m proposing free trade. No taxes and no portage fees.” With that bombshell, she poured three fingers of rum for everyone at the table – and then quickly had to pour another round for the speechless merchants.

“Commander, Mervis will not be happy with this,” Mistress Woolsey pointed out. “You agreed to help with the trading troubles. What good will it do for the sea merchants to undercut Amaranthine’s prices?”

“Mervis from the guild?” asked Owain. He huffed in disdain. “He’s a business man. That blighted wretch can just make new bloody trade contacts. Your warden commander is right that this will open up more opportunities.”

“You’re not kidding. Lift the tariffs on goods from Seheron or Rivain and even I might go legit,” Isabela muttered into her glass with a smile.

“What about lyrium?” Shiuhn wanted to know. “Will there be any goods considered contraband? There’ll be blood to pay if we encroach on the Carta’s territory.”

And so the evening wore on as they discussed how the free trade port of Amaranthine would work. Captain Brigid fairly glowed with excitement. With her family connections in the Storm Coast and Highevever as well as marriage alliances in Rivain and Antiva, she was already making a tally of which goods could be counted on to Mistress Woolsey. It had been a generation since the empire had been pushed from Fereldan, but many of the Amaranthine merchants could be counted on to have kept their contacts as well.

 Thoroughly in her cups, Maedb excused Nathaniel and Eloise for the night when they expressed an interest in returning to the keep. Some of the keep’s soldiers agreed to escort Mistress Woolsey as they ended their leave and the older woman was more than happy to take the assistance of the pikemen on the dark road back. Nathaniel, on the other hand, cut a curt bow and mumbled something about a sister in the market and slipped out through the kitchens.

“I’ll be making berth in Highever next week. What would you have me tell your brother?” Captain Brigid asked her in a more serious tone once Captain Shiuhn left for the night.

“Tell Fergus what you want,” Maedb said as she signaled the server for another pitcher. “No, nevermind. You tell my brother to send me some apples from the harvest along with some recruits for my wardens.”

“Girl, you misunderstand me,” Brigid said. “What are you planning to do with that Howe boy?”

Isabela, reading the mood, hastily made a trek to the privy, dragging the boatswain with her. This left Maedb alone with Captain Brigid. She gritted her teeth and cursed herself for a fool once again for making the mistake of bringing Nathaniel along to the Swollen Purse.

“Listen auntie, I killed Rendon Howe myself as well as the nobles that supported his usurpation of Highever. It’s over.” _It **is**_ _over,_ she told herself, as she’d told herself thousands of times after deciding to press Nathaniel into service.

 “Over? That boy is the son of your parents’ killer. I’ve spent the past three hours with a shiv in my hand debating whether I should open his throat myself.”

“That boy, as you call him, was in the Free Marches when my parents were killed. He serves under me now - is sworn to me and obeys my commands inside the very halls of his forefathers. That Howe boy takes a knee while I sit on the bear throne and one day he will die screaming alone in the dark of the Deep Roads surrounded by darkspawn. You want revenge? Let him live out his years under my command.”

“I’ll hold my tongue when it comes to Fergus - this time anyway,” Brigid threatened. “Remember it was more than your parents that were cut down that night. Your brother lost his wife and son and most of your servants were slaughtered in their beds. When you do tell him – and you better tell him soon – I guarantee that it won’t sit well with most in Highever that the Howe heir is still alive.”

“Nathaniel isn’t the Howe heir any longer,” Maedb explained to her. “The crown has taken everything.”

“That’s right,” Isabela said, coming up behind Maedb and draping her arms around her shoulders. “Your soldier boy has a new allegiance, he’s at your beck and call now, sweetie.”

Brigid made a disgusted noise and pushed back from the table, signaling for Owain. “If he steps out of line, you can bet the Mac Eanraig fleet will not hesitate to serve justice. Good evening, Warden Commander.”

Maedb watched her cousin’s back as the captain and her boatswain hustled up the stairs to the guest rooms on the upper floors of the tavern. If it hadn’t been for her own foolishness, her mother’s family would never have learned she’d taken Rendon Howe’s son into the Grey Wardens. She hadn’t been lying to Brigid when she described the fate that lay in store for Nathaniel – a lonely death in the deeps surrounded by the enemy. What she had failed to tell her cousin was that Maedb herself shared that fate. Had Nathaniel’s conscription really been for the good of the wardens or was it some perverse vengeance? She liked to think she had grown since the Blight, but at times her heart still ached at the losses she sustained in Highever and her blood ran hot with anger. _No, it was what was best for the wardens. And Nathaniel was most certainly spared the hangman’s noose._

“Hey hero, stop thinking about that stick-in-the-mud cousin of yours and enjoy a drink with yours truly,” Isabela said as she took Brigid’s empty seat at the table. She leaned forward, reaching over to refill Maedb’s mug, and flashed her mischievous smile.

“Thanks Isabela, I much prefer your company anyway.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Isabela agreed amicably as she tipped back in her chair and crossed her legs. “How is your woman?”

“Leliana? Back in the Chantry in Orlais,” Maedb said, and even she cringed to hear the note of loneliness in her voice.

“What?” The ale sloshed over the side of Isabela’s cup as she nearly dropped it on the table. She licked some droplets from the side of her hand. “Well at least she looks good in skirts.”

That set Maedb’s face smiling. “I know, right? But it’s not what you think, she’s a lay sister.”

“So if she’s in Orlais, does that mean…?” Isabela trailed off and settled for making a rude gesture with her hands.

“Isabela!” She couldn’t help barking a laugh, torn between being amused and scandalized. “As much as I’d love to swab your deck, I can’t. At least not without Leliana’s permission.” Even the thought warmed her, sending a shiver of longing through her body.

“Then make sure she comes with you when next she comes to visit. Our night in Denerim was rather memorable,” Isabela’s voice had dropped to a low pitch full of promise.

Maedb swallowed once. Twice. “As I said, not without Leliana’s permission. But you can be sure we’ll be back if I’m any judge.” Her skin flushed from both the ale and the anticipation. It had been awhile after all. Oh, how she missed her Leliana.

“Well hero, if you’re going to be like that, perhaps you can introduce me to that boy you so stridently defended earlier,” Isabela suggested. “He has this intensity about him.”

“Oh really? Has it been that long since you’ve had a good keel haul?” Maedb said to her good-naturedly.

Hours later, when the sun began to pink the sky with the pending dawn, Nathaniel Howe walked back into the Swollen Purse to collect her. He took one look at her and Isabela sprawled on the bench singing shanties in low tones surrounded by sleeping sailors and audibly _tsked_. “Warden-Commander, what are you still doing here?” He sounded disappointed in her. “When I returned to the keep, Varel and Garevel were impatiently waiting for you. I sent half the guardsmen out with torches looking for you in case you’d been ambushed on your return.”

Maedb attempted to stand, but quickly dropped to her seat again, hanging her head between her knees.

“The rum is gone, handsome,” Isabela said to him after burying her nose in her cup only to be met with disappointment. “Why is the rum gone? The innkeeper is so stingy here.” She raised her cup in the direction of the kitchens only to have the tired innkeeper answer her with a sigh and a shake of his head.

Nathaniel ignored Isabela’s slurred words and stretched a hand towards Maedb. “Commander, I’ll escort you back to Vigil’s Keep.”

“Stay and share a drink with us, soldier. You owe your commander that much with how she defended your honor this evening,” Isabela said. Maedb answered her with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

He turned his back on Isabela and focused on Maedb.

“I will come,” she said with resignation as she tried to get up from the table.

Right as her legs betrayed her Nathaniel gripped her by the elbows and prevented her from falling. With a sigh, she leaned her forehead against his. He quickly turned his head and exhaled sharply, blowing the stench of her breath away. A quick shrug of his shoulder and suddenly she was leaning on him, one arm flung across his back as they made their way across the mostly quiet tavern and out into the cool air of dawn.

“Let’s get you out of here while you still have some dignity left,” he grumbled. He lowered his voice even further. “You’re not just the Commander of the Grey, you’re also the Arl of Amaranthine now.”

Once they shuffled out onto the street that fronted the harbor, the stench of low tide accosted her, filling her nose with the scents of iodine and the tang of a day old catch.

“It’s not like I can disgrace the arling, now can I?” Maedb stumbled and grabbed onto the front of his shirt to regain her balance. “Your father did enough for that.”

He stiffened at her words. “I was able to meet with my sister and her family last night, thanks to you,” he said after a long moment. “In no way would I have had the chance if you hadn’t conscripted me into the Grey Wardens. I would have died never knowing she survived the Blight.” Once he said his piece, the tension left his shoulders.

They walked the length of the market row quietly while the hardworking shopkeepers of Amaranthine set up the day’s stalls or opened shutters displaying their wares. _Had she really drunk the night away?_ Maedb’s thoughts muddled their way through her drunken wits. “Old Blind Bob has better rum than the Swollen Purse,” she said, needing to break the uncomfortable silence. “Of course, neither has the fine wine that the Pearl offered in Denerim. Some of their stores come from Antiva. Do you know that I learned everything I know about drinking from an old healer? You’d think it would be Oghren, now, but you’d be wrong. Wynne said I had an awful head for wine, but that it was something that could be learned with practice. And practice I did. Every night. Every night we made camp during the Blight. Sometimes it was the only thing that made the nightmares stop. The voices. There were so many voices. You think the dreams are bad now, but when the archdemon wakes, it makes your heart scream. I had another dream last week. I dreamed about you and me. I dreamed you had the blight sickness, covered with boils and pus and your eyes turned black and glassy and everyone abandoned you. But then I went to your cot and I took your pendant away and you came back to life. Then I took the blight sickness and lived as a ghoul and killed everyone I loved and killed everyone I touched until I finally died and I was buried at the Temple of Sacred Ashes and you lit the candles on my altar. But there was no Andraste and no Maker. And I could still hear the voices of the darkspawn even in my tomb. You know the dwarves don’t dream, right? Imagine that. Just imagine no more dreams. Do you think I could sleep at night? Oghren said he has dreams now. It must be an effect of the Joining. Poor man. A lifetime of peace. A lifetime without nightmares. What did I do to him? Will my friend forgive me in the end?”

Nathaniel pulled her around by her shoulders, snapping her out of her rambling. “Stop being foolish,” he admonished her. “Don’t you think it was worth the price to save Fereldan? Oghren knew what he was doing. He said he knew from serving with you in the army and he saw first hand what you and the king endured to save Thedas from the ravages of the archdemon. Do you think I regret it? I have the dreams now too, Maedb, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

With a quick movement he hefted her onto the horse picketed near the front gates. She’d been too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice they’d already emerged from the city.

“You’re going to die, Nate. You. Me. Oghren. Sigrun. We’re all going to die in the dark. In the deeps. Alone and raving. Eating the flesh of the ‘spawn and living our last days as a ghoul. That’s what I’ve condemned you to. That’s what I see every night when I close my eyes. The Calling.”

He got up in the saddle behind her. _Thick headed man. She’d show him how well she rode after a few drinks. She’d run circles around him._

“No,” came the voice behind her ear.

“No?” She tried to wriggle around in the saddle to look him in the face. “What do you mean no?”

“I mean no. We’ll have the Calling. There’s no avoiding that. But you don’t have to meet that fate alone. When the time comes, I going into the Deep Roads with you,” he said quietly.

Maedb began to squirm where she perched on the pommel. Before Nate could even halt the horse, she slid down the withers and stumbled into the brush at the side of the road, immediately beginning to retch. Just before blacking out, she heard a woman sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we discover Maedb's lingering issues with the Blight and her reliance on alcoholism. PTSD perhaps? I imagine a lot of Blight war veterans have that.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An evening of drinks with the new recruits leads to an embarrassing situation for Nathaniel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've upgraded the rating to explicit for a scene at the end of this chapter.

> _The caravans can't get through the woods and the village is running low on supplies. It's that Dalish clan causing trouble again, I know it. I had my man speak to their "keeper" several months back and she (I think it was a she, you can't tell with these elves) said they'd leave for more remote parts. It looks as though they're back, likely their stupid landships blocking the roads. They're a stubborn race and more than a little dense!_
> 
> _I must trouble you for a favour. Go to the Wending Wood and order them to leave._
> 
> _\--Mayor Grisby_

Nathaniel collected Varel on the way to the throne room and quickly let him know who and what Maedb needed for today’s meeting. The seneschal was very efficient, and he didn’t have long to wait before a couple of under-guardsmen lugged a table and some stools into the throne room. He didn’t know how his father had ever conducted business with only the high seat available, but he was impressed that Maedb never let her fellow wardens stand at attention while she reclined on the throne.

The commander entered with Sergeant Maverlies on her heels. And in addition to Seneschal Varel, she’d invited Captain Garavel and Mistress Woolsey. Oghren, Anders, and Sigrun were there, though Longstaff and Daedrig were still on watch on the walls. Once everyone settled at the table, she unrolled the map she’d brought down from her office, weighing it down on one end with her belt knife, and gestured for Maverlies to begin.

Meaghan Maverlies was an Amaranthine native. She’d spent close to three years in the arling militia before joining the guard company at Vigil’s Keep, working her way to sergeant rank in less than five years. She was one of the few guardsmen left from Rendon Howe’s tenure as Arl, which spoke volumes about her involvement in the invasion of Highever the year before. She had dark brown hair and a sallow complexion with a smile left crooked from cutpurse’s blade in her youth. Her tabard boasted the black watchtower that Maedb had chosen for their new sigil for Amaranthine and was, in fact, the first guardsman to adopt the new colors.

Meaghan waved the scroll with the broken orange seal in Commander Cousland’s direction and proceeded to the map of the arling on the table before them and followed the trade route with an ink smudged finger. “This morning, a runner from the village of Advance came bearing a letter from Mayor Grisby. If it weren’t for his letter, we wouldn’t know that Pilgrim’s Path is clear through to the village. It’s only south of there,” here she circled a potion of the Wending Wood that sat on the southern part of the road to Denerim, “that we’re losing contact. I know that area well from my days in the militia. The foothills are rife with sylvans. And if Grisby is right about the knife ears then that’s something our normal soldiers can face unlike what you encountered in the Knotwood Hills. Now that you’ve eliminated the immediate threat of the darkspawn camped out in Kal’Hirol, Captain Garevel said he can loan out a squadron from the guard to help patrol the forest roads.”

Mistress Woolsey grinned in satisfaction. “If you had taken care of this sooner, Denerim could have sent you troops to aid you in securing the Knotwood Hills,” she said.

“No, Woolsey. You might know how to make gold from grain, but you don’t know how much damage those broodmothers would have caused the arling if we hadn’t stopped them,” Maedb explained.

Nathaniel couldn’t believe Woolsey still had the nerve to question the commander in front of the other staff.

“The Warden-Commander is right,” Oghren added. “Those blasted broodmothers breed faster than nugs. We would be drowning in darkspawn right now if that horde continued to occupy Kal’Hirol.”

“As I was saying,” Maedb continued after nodding at her friend, “the caravans are going missing and every scouting party sent to investigate hasn’t returned. I can’t trust the mayor’s assumption that the Dalish are behind this. There’s no way it’s something as simple as a few Dalish wagons blocking the road. As there seems to be another band of genlocks behind ever blighting bush in this arling, I aim to take some of the wardens with me just in case.”

“Commander, will you be needing any of the keep’s soldiers?” asked Captain Garavel. “Our troops are spread rather thin as it is since they are split between the city and the outlying estates. I can recall them from the farms if you want to add them to your party.”

“Thank you, Captain, but I’ll go in first with a scouting party and send word to the keep for reinforcements if they’re needed.” She began tapping a finger on the path marked on the map. “Nathaniel, how well do you know the wood?”

“Before I left for the Free Marches, I often spent time hunting there. The trees may be taller now, but I know every ruin and boulder in that forest.”

“Right, Howe you’re with me then and will run point. Oghren?”

“Un huh,” the dwarf grunted.

“You have command of the keep while I’m away. Put the recruits through the rigorous testing we discussed yesterday and any who don’t meet your standards, send to Captain Garavel. He can add them to the garrison if they know which end of a sword is the pointy bit. Those that don’t, Varel can use to supplement the staff we lost in the attack last month.”

Garevel and Varel both nodded in approval. The seneschal in particular seemed to have an ever growing list of tasks. No matter how many refugees they sent his way, he always found some work for them.

“We’ll hold the Joining in three days time,” Maedb continued. “As soon as everyone has recovered, I’ll leave the new recruits with you while I lead our scouting party west. I don’t want to leave the keep without a warden presence in case another ambush is in the works. The more warden-ensigns we have, the more help we have to sense the darkspawn.”

Briefly, Nathaniel thought back to all the council meetings his father held and wondered how he had led them. Arl Howe had always thought it unimportant for Nathaniel to learn the details of the estate from even a young age, and once he’d been sent off to join Ser Rodolphe, Rendon had completely stopped discussing Amaranthine with him at all. He always suspected his father had been grooming Thomas to take over the estate, but he supposed he’d never know now. The past seven years it had been Varel who had kept Nathaniel up to date on the arling. He swallowed the disappointment back down and chanced to look over at Maedb. He wondered if she had been privy to her father’s management of Highever or if this was a skill she had developed during the Blight when King Alistair had placed her in command of the armies. Either way, he was grateful she included him in the meetings.

“Anders, I’ll want you along too. With such a small party, your spells might make the difference. Plus, if Warden Howe finally follows through with his plan to stick me with one of his arrows, you’ll be on hand to heal me.” She gave Nathaniel a grin to let him know it was a good natured jest, and he obliged her with a smirk in return

Seneschal Varel cleared his throat. “Any idea how long you will be gone?”

“Until the path is clear or I send for additional troops. Nathaniel, how long will it take to reach Pilgrim’s Path?”

“Four days if we take the road, but I know a short cut that will get us there in two if you’re comfortable sneaking through the hills.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said, and Nathaniel stood a little straighter at that. “Oghren, Garavel. I hope the barracks begin to fill up while I’m gone. With the refugees pouring in from the farms, there should be plenty of hands to choose from.”

“I don’t suppose you have plans for the children, commander?” Varel asked. “It’s been some years since there have been so many young families housed in the servants’ quarters. I thought I might use them as pages and runners.”

She waved a hand at his suggestion, already turning to leave the meeting. “Yes, yes. Conscript them how you will. I sent a letter to Our Lady Redeemer requesting a sister to lead lessons, but the Reverend Mother says they have no clerics at the city’s chantry to spare. I fear it will be sometime before Val Royeax sends any more clerics our way.”

As Maedb left the throne room, Nathaniel fell into step beside her. They walked in silence except for the sound of their boots on the flagstones for several minutes. The past week had been uncomfortable to say the least as he tiptoed around Maedb. He honestly didn’t know how to approach her about her outburst in Amaranthine after the meeting with the sea captains.

“Commander?”

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to say thank you for…taking care of Amaranthine. And I guess for trusting me, too. I know I haven’t made it easy in the past.”

He looked over at her as they reached the stairs at the end of the corridor and she caught his gaze.

“Nathaniel,” she began, but she took a moment as though she was looking for a way to rephrase her response the way she wanted. “Sometimes I forget how hard this must be for you: seeing the soldier who killed your father in command of the arling that would have been yours.”

“No, you misunderstand-”

“Did you know that there was talk of a match between our families?” Maedb asked him suddenly.

He felt stunned. “A, a match? No, I was never told of a betrothal. Letters were infrequent in Kirkwall while I was away. Perhaps my father meant to tell me, but…”

“My father taught me everything he taught Fergus,” Maedb explained. “And my mother, well you met my mother plenty of times when you used to be friends with my brother. She raised me to be a lady, but not a lady like your father thought a lady should be. A lady who could command fleets or companies of soldiers. A lady who would one day marry an arl or perhaps a teyrn. Father and Mother included me in their administrative duties and it was not uncommon for me to shadow the captain of the guard. Your father didn’t approve of my swordplay, to say the least, but that didn’t stop him from proposing I marry into the Howe family.”

Nathaniel had a hard time believing that. Rendon Howe had always spoken harshly of Bryce Cousland’s mixed wife and couldn’t imagine his father wanting to taint the Howe family with Rivaini blood. In fact, the only people he hated more were Orlesians. _Was that why Father attacked Highever? Did he want the arling without having to marry one of his children into their family?_

She smiled sadly then, interrupting his suspicions. “I’m sorry about your brother, Nate. I’m sorry for how it all turned out. Thomas was a nice young man, and he and I were both aware that our fathers approved of the match. I’d like to think I would have done well managing an estate here in Amaranthine by his side, had it all turned out differently.”

“ _Thomas_?” He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. “You meant you were to be _Thomas’_ wife?”

“Of course,” she said giving him a quizzical look. “I understand if you’re surprised I can be an administrator in addition to a soldier, but I was groomed for command, not just of soldiers but of an estate. Killing darkspawn came later.”

She left him there at the bottom of the stairs and made her way back to her office.

Two nights later, Nathaniel wearily tread through the keep on his way back to the small room he shared with Oghren after spending much of the afternoon reviewing accounts with the quartermaster Yuriah. _Who knew boots were so expensive?_ The man refused to deal with Herren, claiming the keep’s smith lacked any finesse when it came to leather armor and insisted on dealing with some cobbler from Denerim for the Grey Warden’s uniform boots.

Well, calling Yuriah a quartermaster was generous in his opinion. The merchant had been at the keep during the ambush and had just…never moved on. He didn’t know if it was because Yuriah was too frightened of darkspawn to leave the grounds or if he was truly grateful to Maedb and her wardens for saving him and a few of his fellow merchants.

He was on almost to the north stairwell when a shout from the dining hall pulled him from his musings.

“Hey! Tall, dark, and stoic, c’mere!”

Nathaniel just sighed when he heard the long belch afterwards. It sounded like Oghren had breached another cask.

“Hey, you little beardless blighter, Ima talkin’ at you,” the dwarf continued.

He trudged into the hall to see Oghren surrounded by some young recruits awaiting their Joining, and not a few of them were young women.

“Warden-Recruits,” he said as way of greeting, giving them all a nod. “I trust you’ll take into consideration not _all_ Senior Wardens are of the exceptional quality of our friend Oghren here.” He got a few smiles, but most still stared raptly at Oghren, chin in hands, as they waited for whatever overblown tale the drunkard would spew next of his exploits.

The warrior just guffawed at Nathaniel, stood up, and slapped him soundly on the back. “Don ya listen to him lasses. This here’s Nathaniel Howe, the nephew of the great Arl Byron who united with the Couslands and King Maric to run those lilied-livered Orlesians from yer soddin’ homeland.”

Nathaniel stood dumbfounded while he listened to his fellow warden ramble off highlights of his family’s history. He…hadn’t expected that from such a smelly, vile, ale-soaked little man. He’d thought to be verbally accosted by innuendos and insults in front of the new recruits. He shook off his thoughts and turned his attention back to the warrior’s tale.

“…and when we broke through the ranks of genlocks, Nathaniel here pinned two of the emissaries with those steel shafted arrows of his. Then he waded through into the melee, knocking those blasted darkspawn off their feet with his grandfather’s bow. Ayup! This man’s the dirtiest fighter I’ve ever seen, and the best. He even managed to pick their pockets before their broken bodies hit the ground!” Oghren raised a mug filled to the brim with amber colored ale and yelled, “To Senior Warden Nathaniel Howe. If I have to be stuck with such a stuffy, stoic, and quiet blighter, it might as well be him.”

The other recruits raised their mugs as well. “To Howe!”

Feeling uncomfortable, but not knowing what else to do, he stepped over the bench and sat with the group. “Is your Joining tomorrow?”

“Aye,” said one young woman that he learned later was called Myra. She looked sturdy with the broad shoulders of a farmer, though there was a long handled war hammer propped on the flagstones next to her, the haft leaning against the table’s edge. Myra wore her red hair cropped close with a short fringe over her eyes.  “The Warden-Commander says we’re to go out scouting with another warden tomorrow and look for darkspawn. Then when we have enough blood to fill our skins, we’re to come back for the Joining. It’s part of some sort of test I think. Did you do it?”

“A test? Nah,” Oghren answered for him. “We were here during the ambush. No need to go scouting for darkspawn when you couldn’t turn around without tripping on them. Plus, the Commander saw my battle prowess during the Blight. She and I took out whole armies of darkspawn on the way to the archdemon.”

“You were with the Commander when she slew the archdemon?” Myra’s eyes got wider.

“I heard it was King Alistair that fought with her on top of Fort Drakon,” chimed in a youth on Myra’s left. “That they were lovers and sworn to fight together to the end.”

“What’s your name, lad?” the dwarf asked.

“Flint, ser.” The boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Not even a trace of fuzz on his chin.

“Flint. Don’t you go spreading rumors about the King and our Commander or I’ll have yer hide for a new pair o’boots. You got that?”

“Yes ser!”

“Now, let me tell you how it really was, so you can be spreading the _truth,”_ Oghren said as he refilled their mugs _. “_ King Alistair was there at Fort Drakon, but he wasn’t the Commander’s lover. _That honor_ , my friends, belongs to another. Though, he did try. I even remember the king brought the commander roses, but he wasn’t the king yet-still just a bastard. No. Our Warden-Commander took up with some _moss licker_ from Orlais.”

“An _Orlesian!_ ” “What’s a _moss licker?” “_ King Alistair was in love with the Warden-Commander?” All the recruits seemed to ask something at once.

“She was a _spy_ from Orlais who had been masquerading as one of the Chantry sisters in Lothering. She’d already finagled her way into the Commander’s party by the time I met them in Orzammar. But like the rest of those soddin’ fools that followed her, she was dazzled by the Commander’s brilliance in battle and the fierceness of her war cry.”

“Do dwarves call Orlesians moss lickers?” Flint asked, still confused.

Nathaniel watched as Myra leaned over and whispered an explanation in the youth’s ear, then he saw the boy’s eyes widen in shock.

“So the elegant spy turned her coat and joined the beautiful warrior in her fight against the darkspawn threat. I took a war party to the gates of Denerim, protecting the capital of Ferelden from the darkspawn hordes while King Alistair, the Warden-Commander, the Orlesian spy, and some healer woman with a great taste in wine snaked their way through the city and confronted the archdemon atop Fort Drakon. The battle waged for longer than I care to admit and then our commander dealt the killing blow, ending the archdemon and the Blight. King Alistair keeps the skull of the archdemon in his throne room, the healer stayed in the king’s court as an advisor to the Theirin line, and the spy slunk off into the shadows, probably infiltrating the ranks of those Andrastian sisters or something.”

“What did she look like? The commander’s lover, I mean,” Myra asked.

“She was tall. Taller than the commander with red hair and great big…flasks of acid she used to throw on groups of darkspawn. Like Howe, here, she was a master archer. And she loved the fight so much that she used to sing when we went into battle. We always fought harder when she sang at our backs, but maybe it’s just that our enemies thought all the singing was creepy when your hacking someone limb from limb.”

Nathaniel, who had been sipping his ale while Oghren told his tale, didn’t believe it. He wanted to know more, but he didn’t want the recruits to hear any more old tales of battle if they just revolved around the commander’s love life. If _he_ was commander, he knew he wouldn’t want his soldiers discussing who he took to bed.

“Don’t you need to go on a scouting party tomorrow?” he snapped at them.

“Yesser!” The recruits scrambled back from the table so quickly, that the bench was knocked over. He must have sounder angrier than he intended.

Once they left the hall, he turned to Oghren once more. He topped off both their mugs and asked, “So the commander prefers women?”

“Nah. She took men in her tent too during the Blight. And sometimes she’d ask for men when we went to the Pearl. I think it’s whatever strikes her fancy. Can’t say as I blame her, mind you. What with a Blight and all, I’d be trying to hammer the ol’ anvil anywhere I could.”

“But not the King.”

“No, but he mooned about after her something awful. She finally had to break it to him that she loved Leliana, and I swear he didn’t talk to her for weeks afterwards. Poor sot. I know how he feels.” Oghren slammed the ale back and immediately reached for the pitcher.

“What’s this then?”

Both men swiveled on the bench, eyes wide with panic as the Warden-Commander walked into the room. Her hair was still damp, so she must have come straight from the baths. She wore her training leathers and carried her sword at her waist. Nathaniel had never seen her without it, actually. She strode over and sat down next to Nathaniel, straddling the bench. As she helped herself to some of the ale, Nathaniel couldn’t help but notice she smelled of lavender.

“I was just telling the warden here to watch out for moss lickers. They’ll just break your heart.”

The words were no sooner out of Oghren’s mouth than Maedb had lunged over Nathaniel’s lap and stabbed a dagger down onto the wood bench between the dwarf’s thighs.

“Warden, if I ever here you use that term again, or dew licker, switch flicker, or any other pet name you might have, you’ll find yourself shaved so close, I’ll have to start calling you Oghra. You understand me?”

The dwarf had spit out his ale when the dagger split the wood. He grabbed his whiskers in panic and began sputtering incoherent apologies almost immediately.

The commander’s face softened, and she said, “I’m sorry about Branka, Oghren. I really am. But those were her choices. You spoke with Hespith just the same as me. You can’t hate someone for who they chose to love.”

Nathaniel was still stuck between the two as the commander leant over him, dagger in hand. He could feel the studs in her jerkin press into his legs and he began to panic when he realized just how warm her body felt in his lap. Nathaniel pleaded for the two to stop bickering and change the subject.

Maedb immediately sat back up, yanking the blade from the wood with a quick motion. As she sheathed it at her waist she said, “I ran into some of the recruits as they were headed back to the barracks. I invited them down for a drink with us.”

“I just sent some off to bed. Their Joining ceremony is tomorrow.”

“Nate, that’s exactly why I invited them. _Their Joining is tomorrow._ Let them drink with friends tonight.”

“Yes, Commander. “ She was right. Chances were some of them would not survive the next day’s events.

He retired early, leaving Maedb and Oghren telling raucous stories to the recruits as they all drank into the night. He folded his clothes on the chest at the end of his cot and slid under the blankets in just his small clothes. He’d definitely had too much to drink, he thought, as the room spun around him where he lay, and he couldn’t take his mind off of all he’d learned about the commander tonight while talking with Oghren. Frankly, he was surprised Alistair hadn’t married her to help secure the throne. After all, she was the Hero of Ferelden and he was a bastard, albeit a royal one. It couldn’t have hurt his case with the small folk.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the commander denying the king of all people! Quickly, his thoughts turned to her taking a woman to bed instead. At first Nathaniel tried to ignore his cock, squeezing his hands into fists, but the desire won out. He slid a hand down and palmed himself through the cloth of his smallclothes. He was already half hard with the memory of her sprawled across his lap. He thought of her fresh from the bath, smelling of lavender. He thought of her lips and if they would taste of the bitter ale she drank tonight or of something sweeter. He thought of Maedb, _moss licker,_ kneeling between the legs of a faceless red-headed woman. Her face was buried in copper colored curls while the other woman sat spread-legged and with her head rolled back in pleasure.

His gripped himself now and felt the bead of moisture at the tip. Nathaniel imagined Maedb slipping her fingers inside the other woman as she kissed the breasts of her lover. At some point, his mind betrayed him and it was _Nathaniel_ kneeling between _Maedb’s_ strong thighs.  He had just started to groan when he heard the sound of booted feet outside the door.

Nathaniel started stroking harder, perhaps in the excitement that someone might walk in. He heard something large hit the floor and then came Oghren’s unmistakable grunt.

“Hey…hey, you.”

“Hold still, you duster.”  It was the commander’s voice. His fingers clenched in panic, but he just rolled to his side, putting his back to the door. In the next moment, the door creaked open and he heard Maedb drag Oghren towards his cot in the corner.

“Hey, beautiful…” the dwarf began to mumble. “Yer just too tall fer me to give you a good time, ya long limbed goddess. What say you get down on yer knees and let Oghren give you the what for.”

“Sorry Oghren, you’re just not my type,” the commander explained, irritation plain in her voice.

“Whaddya mean, not yer type? Ima killer just like that Leliana o’yours. I can sing good, too!” He accented it with a loud, wet sounding belch.

“Naw, that’s not it, you little nug-humper,” Maedb said good-naturedly. “You know I have a thing for shoulders and archers have what I like. Someone who knows their way around a bow, well, it does something to their back and shoulders that just makes my mouth water.”

“Aw, Commander. They must really make you _quiver.”_ He gave a drunken laugh at his own pun.

_"_ Shut up, Oghren and get some sleep. I think you’ll be useless tomorrow on patrol, so I’ll let Howe take the recruits.” He heard her walk over and lean over his cot. He stilled his hand, but could still feel the shaft throb with desire against his palm. Nathaniel caught his breath.

“Hey Nate,” she whispered.

“Yes, Commander.” He tried his best to sound sleepy.

“I’m giving you the command in the morning. First bell.”

“Yes ser.”

“And Nate…make sure they have fun. Or as much fun as someone can have killing darkspawn. This might be their last day, to be sure.”

“Yes Commander. Good night, Commander.”

He waited until he heard her shut the door and listened as her boots faded down the hallway.

_Someone who knows their way around a bow._ He reached his other hand down to press behind his balls and began tugging once more. He came suddenly, spurting over his hand. It was all he could do to stay quiet with his bunkmate just feet away.

“If yer about done fletching your arrow, I’d like to get some blasted sleep.” And with that, Oghren rolled over and began to snore while Nathaniel lay there in shock of what he’d just done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second smutty scene I've ever written (the first was in [this femslash fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2053554)). I hope it works. There will also be femslash in this fic the future.
> 
> Also, I'm worried the beginning of this chapter is a little dry. I'm still working on writing group dynamics, which is why I wanted to write a meeting and not something more exciting, so I may continue to tweak this scene in the throne room.

**Author's Note:**

> Of note: I work full time and I have a baby. Updates may be inconsistent.


End file.
